
Class _J2_5iQ_ 

Book 3 — 

Copyright W.-ifL£JL 

CiiEffilGHT DEPQSIB 



jtories of Jimericans 



IN 



The World War 




Institute for Public Service — Journal of Education 



Stories of Americans 

in 

The World War 






WILLIAM H. ALLEN 

Director, Institute for Public Service ; author of War Facts for 

Every American, When-Where-Who-Why War Questions 

Answered, Civics and Health, Universal Training for 

Citizenship and Public Service, etc 



CLARE KLEISER 

Public School Principal, New York City 



Issued by 

INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE 

51 Chambers Street, New York City 

and 

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 
6 Beacon Street, Boston 



First Audiences 

of ^ 

Stories Here Reprinted 

These stories of Americans in the world 
war were first written by doers, see-ers and 
seers. 

Because each writer had a message of 
entertainment or inspiration, the original 
stories and poems could not be condensed 
without omitting valuable lines. Yet for an 
intermediate reader of practical length and 
desired variety, it was necessary to con- 
dense, sometimes by omission, sometimes 
by rewriting. 

The publishers and copyrighters of the 
stories and poems as they originally ap- 
peared showed their interest in the pur- 
pose of this reader by kindly permitting 
the use of their material here. 

Instead of naming our collaborators in 
this prefatory acknowledgment, we name 
them and their publications after the 
stories and poems, in the hope that readers 
will thus more easily associate any plea- 
sure derived from this book with the audi- 
ence which first enjoyed each story or 
poem, and with the publisher and author to 
whom appreciation is due. 

The Authoks 
OCT 21 1918 

Copyright 1918 

by 

Institute for Public Service 

' . • 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

First Audiences of Stories Here Preprinted 2 

And the Whole World Listened 5 

"Liberty Enlightening the World" 12 

"For All We Have and Are" 12 

Verdun Belle 13 

Our First Marines in France 16 

My Pledge 21 

The Five Flags 22 

Facing Death on a Hospital Ship 22 

Five School Days in Bombarded Eheims 25 

The Eed Cross Spirit Speaks 30 

A Story in Cartoon 31 

Old Tom Nurses His Master 33 

How Our Boys Go to Battle 35 

"The Wood of the Americans" 37 

A Soldier-Made Decoration 39 

A Captured American Escapes 40 

The Way to Win 45 

A j French Girl's Idea of America 46 

Our Engineers in France . - 48 

A War Cabinet in Schools 57 

The Doughboy 59 

American Heroes of the Marne 60 

The Yankee Smile 69 

An American Heroine in France 70 

Carrier Pigeons in the War 72 

Lufbery, American Ace 78 

A Texan Airman's Holiday 80 

Two Brothers in France, A. E. F. to Home Folks in 

America 85 

3 



PAGE 

A Man Named Brown 95 

Volunteers Cross No Man's Land 97 

The Navy 99 

Chasing Submarines 102 

On Board a IT. S. Destroyer 103 

Decorated in Italy 107 

In Flanders Fields 109 

America's Answer 109 

Deceiving the Enemy by Camouflage 110 

A Raid for Prisoners 115 

Interviewing Peanuts, Oldest Veteran 119 

Birds in No Man's Land 121 

A Matter of Tune 123 

To France 126 

A Prisoner Taken in the Air 127 

Bill and Dick, Ambulance Heroes . . 128 

Baylies of the Air Service 132 

Night Raiders of the Air '. 134 

Dogs in Khaki 139 

Ballyshannon, War-Dog 147 

Ways of Honoring Heroes : 150 

Semper Fidelis — Always Faithful. 152 

"Over the Top" Six Times 154 

Tanks or Caterpillar Forts 155 

Insisting Upon the Pass Word 163 

Americans in Joan of Arc's Home 164 

Pershing Before the War 166 

Pershing in France 169 

Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight 172 

Lincoln and Kaiser to Two Mothers 173 

Our Flag Forever 174 

Military Terms 175 

4 



And the Whole World Listened 

It was not a long story. It was spoken in a small 
room. The speaker hardly raised his voice. Yet that 
speech was waited for and listened to by the whole 
world. 

The speaker was a citizen of the United States, born 
in a small Virginia town, to no title or riches except 
the title American citizen and the riches of opportunity 
in America. He had no rights except those which every 
other American citizen possesses. He had enjoyed no 
opportunities which had not been urged upon hundreds 
of thousands of his country's boys and girls. He had no 
powers but those which • his fellow citizens had given 
him. Yet he was listened to by the whole world. 

The story was told in simple words. There were no 
attempts to secure applause. In fact, the story was read 
from notes just as it was later printed in newspapers. 
Yet the whole world listened to its every syllable. 

Nor was the story new, except for its ending. It was 
a twice : told tale, a review of crimes against humanity, 
which had been many times before described to all the 
world. Nevertheless the whole world listened. 

Never before had so much depended upon the ending 
of a story, the last words of a speech. 

The whole world breathlessly waited for these last 
words because in them America would tell its fellow 
nations whether it would yield to German autocracy or 
fight and conquer it. 



From these last words would come a promise of untold 
significance to all mankind — would America let German 
autocracy destroy America's rights and triumph over 
democracy everywhere, or would America help the free 
nations of the world destroy German autocracy ! 

It was the story's ending which made the whole world 
listen to the retelling of war crimes like these by Ger- 
many against humanity: 

(1) Germany had sunk eight American ships and taken 
226 American lives, including those lost on mer- 
chant ships belonging to other nations. 

(2) Germany had filled our cities and country districts, 
and even our government offices, with spies. 

(3) Germany's spies had tried everywhere in criminal 
ways to cause differences of opinion among our 
people, and to interfere with our industries and 
trade by blowing up factories, sinking steamers, 
and destroying food supplies in our cities. 

(4) Crimes committed by Germany's agents had been 
suggested, paid for and actually directed by Ger- 
man agents in high position, at the head of whom 
was the German ambassador to this country. 

(5) Ocean vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, 
even when they belonged to friendly nations and 
even when carrying cargoes that could not possibly 
do Germany harm, had been torpedoed by Ger- 
man submarines and had been sent to the bottom 
of the ocean, without warning and without thought 
of help or mercy for those on board; 700 vessels 
belonging to friendly or neutral nations had 
already been sunk by German submarines. 



(6) Even lied Cross hospital ships and other ships 
carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken 
people of Belgium had been sunk with the same 
brutality, in spite of the fact that they were clearly 
marked to show that they were hospital and relief 
ships, and in spite of the fact that Germany's gov- 
ernment itself had guaranteed their safety. 

(7) Germany had brutally and by wholesale killed non- 
combatants, or adults and children, who were not 
taking any part in the war, but were engaged in 
work which even in the darkest periods of modern 
history had been permitted and protected by enemy 
armies and called peaceful employment. 

(8) Germany had announced that on and after the first 
day of February, 1917, it was its purpose, contrary 
to the laws of humanity, to use its submarines to 
sink every vessel that might try to approach the 
ports of Great Britain and Ireland, or the western 
coast of Europe, or any of the ports held by the 
enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. 

(10) Germany had tried to stir up enmity against us in 
Mexico, and had offered Mexico our states Arizona, 
New Mexico and Texas if Mexico would make war 
upon us. 

(11) The German government had started the world war 
without the previous knowledge or approval of the 
German people; had violated the constitution of 
Germany by declaring this war without first ob- 
taining the consent of the German senate or 
Bundesrath; had, from the beginning of the war, 
cunningly deceived the German people and treated 
them like playthings, and had selfishly done what it 
pleased and told its people nothing or lies. 



(12) In the presence of a government that used such 
methods as Germany employed, always lying in 
wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there 
could be no safety for the democratic governments 
of the world. 

The speaker had no power to punish Germany for the 
well known crimes against humanity of which he re- 
minded the world. He could not send American armies 
out of our country, or war boats beyond the three miles 
of ocean along our coast which nations call ours, unless 
authorized to do so by the American people's elected rep- 
resentatives in Congress. He could do nothing but tell 
the story. 

Yet the whole world listened because the world be- 
lieved that it was listening to the voice of America; to 
the people whose liberty had been enlightening the 
world since its Declaration of Independence in 1776, 
to the people who gave Washington and Lincoln to free- 
dom-loving mankind everywhere. 

Four days after this story ended Congress declared 
that the story's conclusion was the only safe and hon- 
orable conclusion for our country, namely, that Germany 
had been making war upon us; that Germany had de- 
clared its intention to keep on making war upon us and 
upon the freedom of all mankind; and that it was our 
duty to fight with all our might against Germany's 
injustice. 

The American citizen who told this story was the 
President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, then 

9 



beginning the second year of his second term. The story 
was called the President's War Message. It was told 
in the national capitol for which Washington, the Father 
of his Country, and its first President, laid the corner- 
stone in 1793. 

Within reach of the speaker's voice were senators and 
representatives, government officers, a few guests, and 
newspaper reporters. At the hour when the war message 
was being read aloud, newspapers to whom the ad- 
dress had been sent in advance by mail, by telegram, 
or by telephone were distributing printed copies. Before 
the story was ended at Washington hundreds of millions 
of men in all parts of the world were asking one another 
and telling one another what it meant. 

The day was April 2, 1917. 

For all time to come this story will be told over and 
over again by our present Allies, by a new Eussia, by 
small nations soon to be set free, and even by an emanci- 
pated Germany. 

It was but a notable new chapter in the great story of 
freedom's fight against Germany's desire to rule or 
destroy. To win this fight our nation is but one of 
many champions and our nation's spokesman but one 
of many spokesmen. 

So long as men tell stories to one another the story 
of our country's part in the world war for the ultimate 
peace of the world and for the liberation of its people, 
the people of Germany included, will be given a place 
of honor. 

10 



So long as citizens of the world read stories, our 
nation will be expected to live up to the high ideal pro- 
nounced by its spokesman in the President's War Mes- 
sage of April 2, 1917 : 

The world must be made safe for democracy. 

Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of 
political liberty. 

We have no selfish ends to serve. 

We desire no conquests, no dominion. 

We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material com- 
pensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. 

We are but one of the champions of the rights of man- 
kind. 

We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made 
as secure as the faith and freedom of nations can 
make them. . . . 

To such a task we shall dedicate our lives and our fortunes, 
everything that we are and everything that we have, 
with the pride of those who know that the day has 
come when America is privileged to spend her blood 
and her might for the principles that gave her birth 
and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. 

God helping her, she can do no other. 



11 



"Liberty Enlightening the World" 

Thou warden of the western gate, above Manhattan Bay, 
The fogs of doubt that hid thy face are driven clean away: 
Thine eyes at last look far and clear, thou liftest high thy hand 
To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land. 

No more thou dreamest of a peace reserved alone for thee, 
While friends are fighting for thy cause beyond the guardian sea : 
The battle that they wage is thine ; thou fallest if they fall ; 
The swollen flood of Prussian pride will sweep unchecked o'er all. 

O cruel is the conquer-lust in Hohenzollern brains : 
The paths they plot to gain their goal are dark with shameful stains 
No faith they keep, no law reverse, no god but naked Might ; — 
They are the foemen of mankind. Up, Liberty, and smite! 



O dearest country of my heart, home of the high desire, 
Make clean thy soul for sacrifice on Freedom's altar-fire : 
For thou must suffer, thou must fight, until the warlords cease, 
And all the peoples lift their heads in liberty and peace. 

— Henby Van Dyke. 

From The Bed Flower, copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 



"For All We Have and Are" 

Once more we hear the word 
That sickened earth of old: 
"No law except the sword 
Unsheathed and uncontrolled," 
Once more it knits mankind, 
Once more the nations go 
To meet and break and bind 
A crazed and driven foe. 

Extract from From All We Have and Are, Rudyard Kipling 
12 



Verdun Belle 

"Belle" is a setter, shabby white, with great splotches 
of chocolate brown in her coat. Her ears are brown and 
silky. Her ancestry is dubious. She is undersized and 
would not stand a chance at the dog show in Madison 
Square Garden back home. But the marines think there 
never was another dog like her. 

Belle bobbed up out of nowhere in a sector near 
Verdun, singled out a young private of the marines, and 
attached herself to him. 

Belle was as used to war as the most weatherbeaten 
poilu. The tremble of the ground did not disturb her; 
and the whining whir of shells overhead only made her 
twitch and wrinkle her nose in her sleep. She was trench 
broken. You could have put a plate of pork chops on 
the parapet and nothing would have induced her to go 
after them. 

She actually learned to race for the spot where a gas 
mask, invented for her by her master, could be put over 
her nose whenever the signal warning of a gas attack 
was sounded. 

Before long Belle became the mother of nine brown 
and white puppies. They had hardly opened their eyes 
before her master's regiment got orders to "hike" for 
another sector. 

Some might have thought the dog and her puppies 
would be left behind, but this never occurred to her young 
master. He commandeered a market basket somewhere, 
put the puppies into it, and let Verdun Belle trot behind. 

13 



In spite of the fact that the amount of equipment which 
each marine carries on the march is supposed to be 
all that a man can possibly carry, this marine found 
strength to carry the extra weight of the basket. 

Forty miles he carried his burden along the parched 
French highway. Then came an order to march even 
further. Eeluctantly the marine was forced to give up 
the basket. Mournfully he killed four of the puppies, 
and the other three he slipped into his shirt front. 

Then he trudged on his way, the mother dog trotting 
trustfully behind. 

Another of the pups died on the long march, and some- 
where in the tremendous procession of marching men 
and endless lines of trucks and wagons, Belle herself 
got lost. 

The marine was at his wit's end to keep the two re- 
maining puppies alive. Finally he hailed the crew of 
an ambulance passing back from the front, turned the 
pups over to them, and disappeared with his comrades. 

The ambulance men were unable to induce the pups 
to eat canned beef and had no fresh milk. They tried in 
vain to find a cow. 

The next morning a fresh company of marines 
trooped by the farm, and following them, tired, anxious, 
but undismayed, was Verdun Belle. 

A few miles back, the day before, she had lost her 
master, and until she could find him again, she evidently 
had thought that any marine was better than none 
at all. 

14 



The troops did not halt at the farm but Belle did. At 
the gate she stopped, drew in her lolling tongue, sniffed 
inquiringly the evening air — and like a flash, a white 
streak along the drive — she raced to a distant tree, where 
on a pile of discarded dressings, in the shade, the pups 
were sleeping. 

All the corps men stopped work and marveled. It was 
such a family reunion as warms the heart. For the 
worried mess sergeant it was a great relief. For the 
pups it was a mess call clear and simple. 

With only one worry left in her mind Verdun Belle 
settled down with her puppies at this field hospital. In 
a day or two the wounded began coming in, a steady 
stream. 

Always mistress of the art of keeping out from under 
foot, very quietly Belle hung around and investigated 
each ambulance that turned in from the main road and 
backed up with its load of pain. 

Then one evening they lifted out a marine, listless in 
the half stupor of shell shock. To the busy workers he 
was just another case, number such and such, but there 
was no need to tell anyone who saw the wild joy of the 
dog that Verdun Belle had found her own. 

The first consciousness he had of his new surroundings 
was the feel of her rough pink tongue licking the dust 
from his face. And those who passed that way last Sun- 
day found two cots together in the kindly shade of the 
spreading tree. On one the mother dog lay contented 
with her puppies. Fast asleep on the other, his arm 

15 



thrown out so that one grimy hand could clutch a silken 
ear, lay the young marine. 

It perplexed some of the hospital workers to know 
what would be done when the time came to send the 
marine on to the base hospital. But they knew in their 
hearts that they could safely leave the answer to some 
one else. They could leave it to Verdun Belle. 

The Stars and Stripes, issued by the American Army in France 

Our First Marines in France 

When the vanguard of the American Army left for 
France in the spring of 1917 a brigade of marines went 
with them. There were 14,644 marines over there a 
year later. Three days after the fifth German drive 
on Paris had been halted at the Marne, it was decided 
that the wide triangular wedge that the enemy had 
gained must be sharpened and narrowed. The com- 
mander of the sector about Chateau Thierry (Shat-o-tee- 
er-y) that was held by the marines was anxious to make 
an attack on the enemy without the assistance of the 
French. He received permission to do so. The attack 
was planned for dawn, June 6. 

After an artillery fire that lasted an hour, the marines 
went "over the top," with their favorite cry, Each man 
get a German, hut don't let a German get you. 

On the roofs of the little stone farm houses signallers 
could be seen wigwagging, while in the meadows the 
artillery officers with glasses calmly examined the result 
of their fire. 

16 



The marines had sworn they would not yield an inch 
of ground, and they swung into battle with their helmets 
decked with poppies. "Wild cats" and "human cyclones" 
other enemies had called them in the past, but the Ger- 
mans gave them a new name, "Teufel Hunden," and 
"Devil Dogs" they proved to be. 

At the north of the marines , six-mile sector was Veuilly 
Woods (Vay-yi). 

Now a wood is a good hiding place for machine guns 
and is always greatly desired by either attacking or 
defending troops. When the Germans saw the American 
machine guns being withdrawn from the woods and 
troops retreating, a company and a half of the Huns 
slipped in. But the marines' retreat had been only a 
snare, and twelve prisoners brought back that night were 
all that were left of the Germans who entered the trap. 

After Veuilly Wood had been cleared, the marines 
fell back and filled up the ranks of other advancing com- 
panies. Nothing could stop them. 

The attack had begun at a quarter to four in the morn- 
ing; at a quarter to eight every objective or point sought 
had been gained. 

It had not been intended to make any further assaults 
that day, but the marines' blood was up, and when the 
German morale was found to be low, an attack on Torcy 
and Bouresches (Boo-resh) was ordered for five p. m. 
Too excited to eat the food brought up to them, all the 
marines asked for was plenty of ammunition. When 

17 



they started they went so fast it was pretty hard work 
for ordnance companies to keep up to them. 

Torcy is a little village near Veuilly Woods. Twenty- 
five marines drove two hundred Germans out of the town 
at the point of their bayonets. 




© Committee on Public Information 

The way old French villages look to our boys 



*n 



Bouresches is a larger town and an important railroad 
center. The Germans did not want to lose it. They had 
mounted their guns in the houses until almost every 
house seemed to have eyes that winked grimly and 
mouths that spat fire. Again and again the marines 
dashed into the town, leaving many of their comrades 
behind them, until at last Lieut. Robertson forced his 
way into the centre of Bouresches with what was left 
of his company. He managed to hold his position there 
for half an hour though the German guns barked and 
snarled all about him. Two other companies finally man- 

18 



aged to join him. For another hour these three brave 
companies went about the town stealthily routing out 
the German gunners. After a time their ammunition 
ran low and a messenger dashed back for more. 

A truck loaded with supplies was started back to 
Bouresches, Lieut. Donald Moore in charge. It wasn't a 
pleasant trip, for the German snipers opened fire at him 
from every hedge but Moore persevered although one 
successful shot would have blown him and his explosive 
load to atoms. He distributed the ammunition under 
fire and when some one congratulated him on his cour- 
age, he remarked casually that "luck had been with him." 

On the night of June 12th, the Huns decided that they 
must really get Bouresches back. So terribly did their 
cannon thunder all night, and so savage did the attack 
seem to be, that a major was sent over to the town in 
the morning by the commanding general to find out 
if the town had been taken. 

But before the major from the staff had reached 
Bouresches, he came across the officer of marines who 
was entrusted with the town's defense. 

"Are the boches in Bouresches V 9 asked the major 
anxiously. "Yes, sir," was the calm reply. 

"Wasn't it the positive order that no Germans were 
to be allowed to remain in Bouresches?" thundered the 
staff officer. "Yes, sir." 

"Then," said the major, "then why are they there?" 

"Burying party not yet arrived," was the answer. 

He forgot to add that there were also 51 prisoners. 

19 



Where the World War Is 




Eclipse of peace Istiiiwhttel by world war 



This map shows all the land and all the seas of the 
earth except parts around and near the North and South 
Poles where only a few human "beings live. 

Every part of the map which is black is the home of 
people who are taking part in the world war which was 
started by German war lords in 1914 for the sake of win- 
ning lands from other nations. 

Only the few small white parts, some of them mere 
tiny white spots, are not sending soldiers or otherwise 
taking sides. Three nations, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria 
and Turkey are siding with Germany, and all the rest 
in black are righting against Germany. 

In the map Russia is left black. In spite of the fact 
that there are treaties between Germany and Russia, it 
is left black because the treaties were not wanted by 
the Russians or by the people of new states made out of 

20 



old Russia, and because there are revolutions going on 
all the time within every part of Russia and these new 
states against German domination. 

Most of the actual fighting is now in northeastern and 
eastern France, the battleground of democracy. 

We do not need a map to learn that our own country 
is at war, for our brothers are in France, Italy or Russia, 
are preparing to go to these countries, or are patrolling 
the ocean on our naval ships; our mothers are saving; 
our fathers are buying Thrift Stamps and Liberty 
Bonds ; we are all a part of the war and with very few 
exceptions are doing our part to win the war for our 
own country, for our Allies, for the small nations, and 
for Democracy and Justice. 

In a democracy like ours, which Lincoln in his Gettys- 
burg speech called "a government of the people, for the 
people, and by the people," it is necessary that each of 
us shall know when and why our liberty is in danger, 
and how we are fighting for it. 

We are not fighting for glory; our country prefers 
the glories of peace. 

MY PLEDGE 

America shall win the war. Therefore I will 
work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, 
I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost as 
though the whole issue of the struggle depended 
on me alone. My pledge. — Private Treptow. 

From the diary of Private Treptow, a battalion runner, 
killed by an enemy machine gun when he was almost 
at his goal, Stars and Stripes. 



21 



The Five Flags 

Up the aisle of the crowded Church, carefully borne, they came, 

Each the sign of a nation's soul, vivid as pulsing flame ; 

Their golden lances held aloft, their billowing colors spread, 

With a proud and stately harmony — the Stars and Stripes at their head ; 

Flag of our very inmost heart, scroll of our deep desire, 

With all our strivings and all our hopes written in strokes of fire. 

With the sting of tears on our eyelids we watched its splendid grace ; 

And after it came the symbols each of a strong undaunted race. 

Britain, Italy, Belgium, France — oh, the red and the white, 

The blue, the green, the black and gold, in the clear heroic light ! 

Sister nations, fighting all, that all may yet be free ; 

Five great flags, like the mighty chords of a marching melody. 

Comrades great, we have heard your call, and the rallying drums that 

beat ; 
We are sick with waiting and longing, we are coming with eager feet! 
See, we have stretched our hands to you, ready to strive and die, 
As, borne along to our Battle Hymn, the five great flags go by. 

— Marion Couthouy Smith. 



Facing Death on a Hospital Ship 

It was a clear and beautiful night. The Llandovery 
Castle, hospital ship, with all her lights burning, and the 
large Eed Cross signal showing prominently amidship, 
was slowly making her way towards the English coast. 

On board were ninety-eight doctors and nurses be- 
longing to the Canadian Red Cross. The fate of this 
hospital ship is here related as it was officially recorded. 

Suddenly, without warning, the ship received a stag- 
gering blow. Lights went out. Engine room signals 
were unanswered. Every one realized what had hap- 
pened. The ship had been torpedoed, and it was quickly 
evident that she was doomed. 

22 



There was no confusion. Those on board had faced 
death many times, they were prepared to face it now. 
Calmly they took their places in the lifeboats. Within 
ten minutes after she had been struck every one had been 
taken off, and the hospital ship went down. 

In one of the boats were fourteen nurses and a crew 
of eight men in charge of a sergeant. This boat was 
swept into the whirlpool about the sinking ship and 
tipped over. Everyone was thrown into the water. 

Although the nurses all wore life belts none of them 
were seen to come to the surface. The sergeant, after 
sinking three times, managed to clutch a piece of wreck- 
age, until he was picked up by the captain's lifeboat. 

Then followed two hours of indescribable misery. The 
indifference of the Hun to the cries for help coming from 
all parts of the sea was incredible. 

Within twenty minutes the captain's boat dragged 
eleven persons out of the water. 

Further rescues were prevented by the submarine 
commander who ordered the captain, under peril of 
instant sinking, to come alongside of the submarine. 
This the captain did to prevent complete disaster. 

The submarine commander then ordered the surrender 
of eight American aviation officers who, he claimed, were 
on board. He was assured that there were no officers 
en board but the ship's own officers and those belonging 
to the medical corps. 

Never have British or American hospital ships carried 
any military officers or objects. The German commander 

23 



did not make this demand in good faith. He did not 
expect to find any aviation officers on board. He was 
merely seeking an excuse for the inhuman conduct he 
planned. The order "spurlos versenkt" — to be sunk with- 
out leaving a trace — was to be obeyed. 

The only surviving lifeboat, with its twenty-four occu- 
pants escaped, almost by a hair's breadth, three attempts 
to sink it, and one attempt to blow it to pieces. 

From one o'clock Thursday, June 27, 1918, and all day 
Friday until half-past one Saturday morning, those who 
escaped alternately sailed and rowed until they were 
within forty miles of the Irish coast. There they were 
picked up by a British destroyer. 




© Committee on Public Information 

After the Germans bombed this hospital 
24 



Of the ninety-eight doctors and nurses belonging to 
the medical staff, only six were saved. 

The fourteen Canadian nurses who were lost had 
served months, some of them years, in the danger zone 
in France. Again and again they had nursed German 
wounded. They had not only given water and medical 
aid to parched and bleeding enemies, but they had writ- 
ten down many dying statements of enemy officers and 
men, and transmitted these to their families through the 
Red Cross. 

It is such atrocities as these which are meant by the 
two war expressions, "unrestricted U-boat warfare" 
and "frightfulness" (Schrecklichkeit), which the Ger- 
mans have added to the dictionary of human experience. 

Adapted from New York Globe 

Five School Days in Bombarded Rheims 

A woman school principal of long suffering Rheims 
kept a diary in which she described the bravery of her 
children. The following paragraphs are taken from a 
translation of her diary which appeared in the Atlantic 
Monthly. 

Opening Day: School in Cellar 

School opens today after being closed on account of 
infantile paralysis. 

A number of mothers with children of all ages from 
four to twelve were on hand early in the morning. 

Some of the children were dressed up as they used 
to be on opening day. All were clean and neat. They 

25 



seemed glad to be at school again after such a long holi- 
day. 

We went into the cellar, where the sessions are to be 
held. The children were examined rapidly, and divided 
into three classes. There were 174 present. 

How strange it was that first day in the cellar less 
than two miles from the battle front ! From time to time 
shells passed whistling over our heads, and in the dis- 
tance always the deep, low rumble of the guns. Sup- 
plied with copy books of all sorts, and old books with 
many pages missing, the children set to work. 

It was a beautiful day. The soft beams of the sun 
shone through the ventilator at one side of the cellar. 
Kerosene lamps lighted the dark corners. I thought 
sadly of our rooms above, so large and pretty and so 
healthy with floods of light pouring in. 

A Noonday Bombardment 

There were more children present today. It has been 
a terrible day. For an hour and a half, at noon, the city 
was bombarded. It had been very quiet during the morn- 
ing. Suddenly there came the whining of a shell, fol- 
lowed by a terrific explosion. Shells seemed to fall on 
every side; one fell in the school garden. 

"We sat huddled together in the center of the cellar. 

About half-past one everything was quiet again. We 
went upstairs and learned that about fifty shells had 
fallen within a very short distance. Some people were 
hurt, but no one was killed. 

26 



Early Morning Bombardment 

This morning, about a quarter to nine, I had nearly 
reached the school when a shell whistled and fell not 
far away. The children were playing in the garden. I 
called all who were there and we went quickly down into 
the cellar. 

The teachers and more children came running in, all 
out of breath. The shells kept falling in the square 
near by. 

However, we had our lessons. I was thankful when 
the day was over. 

Gas Masks for School Children 
The government has sent gas masks for the children. 
"We spent the greater part of the morning in learning 
how to put them on quickly and correctly. The children 
are delighted. They have seen masks hanging from the 
soldiers' belts. Surely these cannot be for them! 

The School Itself Bombarded 

We had 255 pupils present today. School began at 
half-past eight. This day will remain as one of the 
most memorable in all the dreadful time through which 
we are passing. 

I was having a lesson in oral arithmetic when one of 
the teachers who had remained upstairs came rushing 
down the stairway crying, "The bombardment is close 
by!" 

"See that all the children are in the cellar," I replied. 
I was not greatly excited because we have had so many 
bombardments which have not reached the school. 

27 




©International Film Service 

Air raid drill by London school children 

But suddenly a terrific noise deafens us: two shells 
have fallen in a house near by! The little ones began 
to tremble and cry. Then came a tremendous crash right 
over our heads, and the noise of shattered glass. 

A shell has fallen on the building ! The little children 
are terrified and begin to shriek, but the nigger ones 
comfort them, and try to quiet them. We gather close 
together. By and by when they see that they are safe 
they become quiet. A few little girls keep on sobbing. 

"You must not cry any more," I say, "you are safe 
now." I 

But holding me by the hand, one says, "Mamma will 
be killed, she has no cellar." 

And another sobbed, "Papa is working in the square. 
He will not have time to run." 

28 



We try to assure them, and gradually the sobbing 
ceases. 

The bombardment lasted two hours. It seemed very 
long to us. But the children soon lost their fears. So 
far as they were concerned the bombardment had come 
as a surprise, it ended by amusing them. They were 
soon asking to go upstairs to see what had happened. 

At last about twenty minutes past two all is quiet; 
I decide to dismiss the children. They are to start in 
groups, five minutes apart; go as quickly as possible 
through the streets; if they hear the hissing of a shell 
they are to lie flat on the ground. The children are 
quite calm but they realize the seriousness of the 
situation. 

At the door we found a number of parents hurrying 
to get their children. Sending the older children by them- 
selves, I start off with the little ones. 

But they have been brave, the children, very brave, 
following the example of their fathers in the trenches. 
With such children France cannot perish. 

Adapted from article by N. Forsant in The Atlantic Monthly 



Shall there be a common standard of right 
and privilege for all peoples and nations^ or 
shall the strong do as they will and the weak 
suffer without redress? There shall be a 
common standard of right and privilege, 
answers our President 



29 



The Red Cross Spirit Speaks 

Wherever war, with its red woes, 
Or flood, or fire, or famine goes, 

There, too, go I ; 
If earth in any quarter quakes 
Or pestilence its ravage makes, 

Thither I fly. 

I kneel behind the soldier's trench, 

I walk 'mid shambles' smear and stench, 

The dead I mourn ; 
I bear the stretcher and I bend 
O'er Fritz and Pierre and Jack to mend 

What shells have torn. 

I go wherever men may dare, 
I go wherever woman's care 

And love can live, 
Wherever strength and skill can bring 
Surcease to human suffering, 

Or solace give. 

I am your pennies and your pounds ; 
I am your bodies on their rounds 

Of pain afar ; 
I am you, doing what you would 
If you were only where you could — 

Your avatar. 



-John H. Ftnley 

From Red Cross Magazine 



The German people must by this time be 
fully aware that we cannot accept the word 
of those [the autocracy] who forced this war 
upon us. We do not think the same thoughts 
or speak the same language of agreement. — 
Our President 



30 



A Story in Cartoon 

T)„ Imperial M.'lotty'. U-Boit oh Our Cotit. -By W.b.iw. 




The title of this picture is His Imperial Majesty's U- 
Boat on Our Coast. Not far from the small boy and the 
star fish, you can see the U-Boat, which is the name 
given to Germany's diving war boats. 

The tiny little sailboat is like those which all children 
love to make who live near a stream, lake or ocean. 

Coming toward the child's sailboat is the deadly tor- 
pedo which as you see is quite different from the tor- 
.pedoes which we are allowed to shoot as part of our 
Fourth of July celebration. This torpedo is meant to 
destroy and not merely to make a noise and furnish 
amusement. 

To shoot them, diving war boats or U-Boats or sub- 
marines must first come to the surface. The torpedo 
is sent through the water a little below the surface, two 
miles, or one mile, or half a mile in the hope that it will 
destroy a ship. 

31 



It was such a German torpedo that sank the Lusitania 
on May 7, 1915, and sent 1,154 human beings, including 
114 Americans, to the bottom of the sea, contrary to 
the laws and practices of civilized warfare. 

The sailboat in the picture is only a toy sailboat. It 
will be destroyed but its destruction will do nobody 
any good. 

This picture was made the day after our newspapers 
announced that German U-Boats had sunk several small 
fishing boats on our coast. They were real boats belong- 
ing to real fishermen. Their destruction did harm but 
the boats were not worth as much as the torpedoes which 
destroyed them. 

It was to show how useless such warfare is that the 
newspaper picture was drawn. 

Pictures like this which appear in magazines and 
newspapers are called cartoons. The person who draws 
them is called a cartoonist. He has much influence, be- 
cause many of us are more interested in pictures than 
in words, and almost all of us like pictures containing 
the good-natured exaggeration or over-statement which 
is said to be the chief sign of American humor. 

To put a stop to the influence of a famous Belgian 
cartoonist, the German kaiser offered a reward for his 
capture or death. 

Cartoon from New York Globe 

Shall peoples be ruled and dominated, even in 
their own internal affairs, by arbitrary and 
irresponsible force, or by their own will and 
choice? By their own will and choice, an- 
swers our President 

32 



Old Tom Nurses His Master 

For six months Capt. Ed and his horse Tom had been 
almost inseparable. They were together every day, all 
day and sometimes all night. They understood each 
other perfectly. 

Then came the move to the front and Capt. Ed did 
not get much chance to ride. There was other work to 
be done in the batteries trained against the Germans, 
and Capt. Ed was in the thick of it. 

One day, during the time the German shells were 
falling heavily round our guns, he was obliged to go out 
into the open to give orders to his men. A shell dropped 
near, exploded, and a splinter tore the captain's chest. 

Three days later he was in the hospital, within the 
sound of his own guns, and declared to be in a danger- 
ous condition. It was feared that Captain Ed would die. 

One morning he called the nurse. 

"Nurse," he whispered, "I'd like to see old Tom once 
again." 

The nurse spoke to the ward doctor, and the doctor 
spoke to the surgeon in charge, and the surgeon tele- 
phoned to the artillery headquarters. Soon an orderly 
came galloping up the road and dismounted. 

"Here's the captain's horse," he said. "The captain 
wants to see him." 

The orderly and horse were led round to the side of 
the long, low building. Three windows down they 
stopped. The orderly looked in, and saw his captain 
lying in a cot just inside. . 

33 



"Good morning, captain," he said. "I've brought old 
Tom around." 

The wounded captain's face broke into a smile. 

"Have him stick his head in," he ordered faintly. 

Old Tom had heard his master's voice and without 
urging he stuck his head in the window. 

There was his master lying flat on his back, a bandage 
round his head, where a little bit of rock had hit it, and 
pinned to the pillow of his cot a little bronze cross sus- 
pended from a green and red ribbon — the Croix de 
Guerre. 

For half an hour the wounded man talked to his horse, 
calling him "Old Tom" and "Old Man," and feebly 
stroking the animal's soft nose. 

And old Tom understood, for he kept his nose as 
close as possible, and stood perfectly still. He only 
moved once or twice, and then it was to rub his nose 
against his master's palm. 

The surgeon standing near motioned the orderly after 
a while, and the horse's head was withdrawn from the 
window, and the orderly rode him away towards the 
batteries. 

The captain watched them from the window and then 
said: "I guess if old Tom comes to see me every day I 
ought to be moving round in a week or two." 

So old Tom — he isn't the kind of horse that the army 
calls an "artillery plug," he's a real American horse 
and looks it — became a regular visitor at the hospital 
until his master and friend recovered. 

From The Stars and Stripes 

34 



How Our Boys Go to Battle 

After a long night trip of broken, jolting sleep on 
the straw-covered floor of a cattle truck, you detrain at 
a tiny depot, of which you know nothing except that it 
is "somewhere in France." 

If you are lucky there will be coffee in the station 
canteen. More likely you munch a biscuit or sandwich, 
and get a drink of water from your own bottle. 

In the misty twilight that comes before dawn, you 
pile yourself and your equipment into a big square 
camion, whose canvas cover is camouflaged with patches 
of green and brown. 




© Committee on Public Information 

An American army kitchen in France 

With hundreds of companions you sleep some, waking 
now and then as a bigger bump than usual disturbs you. 

About eight o'clock there may be a halt, for the field 
kitchens to hurry out a good breakfast of cocoa, stew 

35 



and bread, or just coffee and bread if you have been 
brought up to a French breakfast. 

After that the journey is a nightmare of dust and heat. 
So thick is the dust you can hardly distinguish more 
than one or two of the long line of camions in front of 
you. 

You jog along at some five miles an hour until noon, 
when there is another halt for dinner, and perhaps a half 
hour's rest in a dusty meadow by the roadside. 

In the afternoon there is more dust, and worse heat. 
You think that you could not be more uncomfortable, but 
you are mistaken, for about four o'clock the camion 
enters a road that runs through a forest as dark and 
dense as an African jungle. Thence through the dusk 
you dimly see ambulances flit past; or camions rumbling 
heavily, like your own, some empty, others bearing 
wounded on stretchers arranged crosswise. There are 
high-powered staff cars, also weary plodding infantry, 
or cavalry trotting on sweating horses. A line of pris- 
oners passes, shabby and dejected; and mule teams, 
whose steeds and drivers alone seem to have energy to 
show bad temper towards every one. 

Now and then at a cross road, there is a tie up, quickly 
disentangled by a curt Frenchman or a big Irishman 
whose instructions are snapped out in good plain 
English. 

Suddenly you are startled by a terrific burst of sound, 
seemingly right above your head. The first shock 
passes, you realize that it is only a big gun talking to 

36 



the boche ten miles away, and not an air bomb or a 
German shell, as you at first imagined. 

At last you reach the outskirts of the forest and you 
leap gladly from the camion for the evening meal. 

You pass the night in a little wood, and this time 
sleep soundly, untroubled by the cannon that booms 
continually. 

If the unit is to "go in" immediately, you are awak- 
ened the next morning while it is still dark for a hurried 
meal. After eating your breakfast you feel more cheer- 
ful. Then comes the final march for battle. You swing 
forward in the cool twilight, your nervousness mixed 
with thrill of excitement. You know you will do your 
utmost, so will the companions beside you do their utmost. 
And may the right be victorious ! 

From New York Times 

"The Wood of the Americans" 

Ever since the marines had taken Bouresches on 
Thursday, June 6th, they had tried in vain to rush Bel- 
leau Wood, which in their hurry to advance they had 
left untaken behind them. This wood which is on top 
of a steep and broad plateau was considered by the Ger- 
mans to be practically impossible to take. 

But it is part of the marine's business to do the im- 
possible. After four days of effort to drive out this nest 
of Huns the marines decided that they had stood enough. 

On Sunday morning they pointed the artillery at 
Belleau Wood and all Sunday night the big shells kept 

37 



pounding in among the trees. At three o'clock on Mon- 
day morning the fire stopped and the marines began. 
They found that the edge of Belleau Wood upon the 
hillslope was mostly destroyed by the shells. Here 
there was little left to stop them and they rushed on. 
Deeper in the wood the Germans made a stand, but the 
marines rooted them out of their machine gun nests 
with bombs and bayonets. 

On through the tangle of underbrush and fallen trees 
the marines chased the enemy; just as Morgan's Rifle- 
men chased the Hessians in our Revolution. With the 
inherited cunning of the frontiersman, the Americans 
dodged behind trees, their deadly accuracy in shooting 
long distances making the Huns run faster and faster 
before them. 

Soon they had reached the northern edge of the wood 
where at once, with the help of the engineers, they 
began to raise a strong defense against German counter- 
attacks. The hill of Belleau was now surrounded and no 
matter in which direction the Germans rushed, they 
found themselves confronted by American machine guns. 

There had been 1,200 Germans in Belleau Wood that 
morning, but when the marines had finished "mopping 
up" there were just 311 left — and they were prisoners. 

The Germans had belonged to the Fifth Guard Divi- 
sion, which was supposed to be one of the Kaiser's crack 
corps. . . . The victory was completed June 26. 

The next day, June 27, the President of France un- 
expectedly visited the American battlefront. He had 

38 



come to congratulate the Americans on their splendid 
work. The whole Belleau Wood and ridge operations 
were, he said, peculiarly American in plan and execu- 
tion and that henceforth, in memory of the fighting done 
there Belleau Wood should be knoivn as The Wood of the 
Americans. , 

A Soldier-Made Decoration 

The clipping which is here quoted was sent for use in 
this reader by a distingiushed army officer who says the 
team spirit — esprit de corps — of the marines is a model 
for other soldiers, and for civilian teams, too. 

Special to The New York Times 

Washington, Aug. 25. — Wounded 
marines who return from France will 
receive a "salute" from their comrades, 
whether entitled to it by regulations 
or not. This custom of saluting the 
wounded enlisted men originated among 
the marines themselves. . . . 

Three marines out walking met a pri- 
vate who was hobbling along on 
crutches, having lost a leg in service in 
France. The three stopped and sa- 
luted, paying an instinctive tribute ta* 
the wounded veteran. This was the be- 
ginning of a custom that is gaining so 
rapidly that it was brought to the at- 
tention of General Barnett, who said : 

"It is a beautiful tribute to the spirit 
which prompted the wounded man's 
sacrifice, and I readily give my ap- 
proval. While no official order will be 
issued on the subject, I shall be glad to 
see the members of the Marine Corps 
thus show respect to their wounded 
comrades." 

The wounded man will not be ex- 
pected to return the salute, a nod of 
the head, a smile, or the mere recog- 
nition of the fact that he is being sa- 
luted being sufficient acknowledgment. 

39 



A Captured American Escapes 

This is the story of Private Donahue. It is the story 
of a young marine who in the midst of a confused and 
savage midnight skirmish on the edge of a ravine up 
Torcy way, northwest of Chateau Thierry, vanished from 
the ranks of his company and was not seen again until 
eight days later when, hungry, dirty, tired, sore and 
happy, he crawled into the American lines at dawn. 

How he got into "Germany" he is not sure. He re- 
members a rush of troops in the dark and a blow over 
the head. The next thing he remembers he was lying 
on the ground outside a candle-lit tent. 

There was a nightmare scuffle and bustle going on 
around him. It was still dark. His rifle was gone. His 
clothes had been ripped open and his pockets emptied. 
As he found out later, they had taken everything, his 
dog-tag, his note-book full of his thoughts on war, his 
money, his letters and clippings and snapshots from 
home. 

Some one was standing over him, speaking to him in 
passable English. It was a German officer — a lieutenant, 
he thought. He scrambled to his feet. The lieutenant 
eyed him sternly. 

"How many Americans are over there?" 

The young marine, as though he had been rehearsed 
in the part for weeks, looked his captor square in the 
eye and answered: 

"Thirty-two American divisions and forty French." 

40 



"Schweiner" (Schwyner, piggish,) shouted the lieu- 
tenant. "Amerikaner, schwyner Amerikaner I" 

The refrain was caught up by the underlings who 
rushed him away. Of all the jabber that reached his 
ears during the next few days that was what he heard 
oftenest. It was all he understood. It was the favorite 
form of address used by the weary succession of guards 
put over him. 

As he was the only prisoner in sight — the only Amer- 
ican save for five or six wounded Yanks he once saw 
carried past him on stretchers — he was not sent directly 
to the rear, but was passed back from group to group 
and made to work his way. 

From sun-up to sun-down he worked with the camou- 
flage men, masking batteries, cutting branches and piling 
bough on bough of leafy green to screen the roadside 
heaps of ammunition boxes. 

He had no blankets to roll in at night, but his captors 
shared their mess with him, pouring out each time an 
unsavory soup or gruel, and tossing him chunks of 
coarse bread to sop it up with. 

Each day a different soldier took him in tow. Each 
day the shifting sound of the artillery told him he was 
gravitating slowly toward the rear. Each night an 
armed guard watched over him. 

Then one night — the seventh — the guard, who sat 
huddled with his back resting against a tree, dropped 
off to sleep. Dark was just settling over the patch of 
wood on the edge of which they had turned in. By the 

41 



moonlight that filtered down through the branches he 
could see the guard's head nodding, nodding. He itched 
to get his hands on the rifle, but the guard was holding 
it upright between his knees as a sort of prop. Donahue 
was afraid even to try to disengage it. 

He groped about for a weapon. His hand landed on 
the short, light end of a broken pick-handle. It wouldn't 
do. He looked for the other piece, found it, hefted it. It 
would do — and it did do away with the guard. 

All around him Germans were sleeping audibly. The 
woods were full of them. He had heard the unintel- 
ligible, gradually subsiding hubbub of their talk as they 
settled down for the night. He bumped into more than 
one of them, but they only grunted and swore while he 
held his breath, and, after a time, crept on. After a 
journey that seemed to last hours and must have lasted 
at least ten minutes, he reached the edge of the woods 
and crawled under a bush to think. 

Very close to him the German artillery was making 
an occasional crashing reply to the Allied shells which 
whirred nasally overhead in an unending chorus. Gun- 
fire is as good as a compass. It was easy enough to 
take his bearings and, though he could only guess how 
far he had moved in the days of his captivity, he thought 
"America" could not be more than eight kilometres away, 
perhaps not that far if the men had advanced any in 
the interval. 

He knew his only chance was to crawl there by night 
and lie low by day. He started out. 

42 



All that night he crept along — hugging the hedge- 
rows and the shadows, stopping to listen, lying still as 
death when soldiers were tramping by, crawling on 
again, dropping flat, crawling on. All the next day he 
lay, hungry and thirsty, in a friendly oat-field, with the 
grain standing straight around him so that no one would 
notice him from the field's edge. 




© Committee on Public Information 

Barbed wire and water do not stop tanks 

Several times some soldiers made short cuts across, 
and passed so close he could hear them talking. Once 
an artilleryman, riding a horse and leading another, 
trotted so near that they all but trampled him under 
foot. 

43 



But the only ones who found him were the dogs, and 
they did not tell. Twice a shaggy Eed Cross dog, with 
its first aid pack and food strapped to its back, proudly 
tracked the worried Donahue to his hiding place, flour- 
ished enthusiastically around him, and threatened to 
bring him succor willy-nilly. He longed to rifle its 
packs and eat again, but each time he only lay quiet and 
prayed for the amiable dog to be off. 

It was toward the end of the second night that the 
young marine, creeping up the side of a ravine, was 
stopped in his tracks by the voice of a sentry. 

"Halt!" 

It was the word he had been sick with fear he should 
hear during two interminable nights, but when he finally 
heard it the voice was an American voice. 

"I'm an American," he answered, and investigated to 
see what it felt like to stand up once more. "Where's 
brigade headquarters V 9 

A little later, after a stolen nap under cover of two 
discarded potato sacks and a sunrise breakfast at the 
field kitchen of another regiment, he was telling brigade 
headquarters all about it. 

After that he told his story to every one, from the 
credulous cook to the imposing beings who questioned 
him at French headquarters. He had kept his eyes open, 
and he had information to give that can hardly be set 
forth here. 

His audiences were not without their doubters, but 
these had not much to say when the report came back 

44 



from the French that Private Donahue's account of his 
eight days was packed with detail that could not pos- 
sibly have been furnished except by one who had actually 
journeyed some miles into "Germany." 

From The Stars and Stripes 

The Way to Win 
The following* verses, written by S. W. McGill, were 
given to the editor of Trench and Camp by a lieutenant 
colonel of the British army, who said he caused a copy 
to be placed in the hands of every soldier coming under 
his command. 

If you think you are beaten, you are, 

If you think that you dare not, you don't, 

If you think you'd like to win, but you think you can't 

It's almost a "cinch" you won't. 

If you think you'll lose, you've lost, 

For out in the world you find 

Success begins with a fellow's will: 

It's all in the state of mind. 

Full many a race is lost 
Ere even a step is run 
And many a coward fails 
Ere even his work's begun. 
Think big, and your deeds will grow. 
Think small and you'll fall behind. 
Think that you can, and you will; 
It's all in the state of mind. 

If you think you're outclassed, you are. 
You've got to think high to rise ; 
You've got to be sure of yourself before 
You can ever win a prize. 
Life's battles don't always go 
To the stronger or faster man; 
But soon or late the man who wins 
Is the fellow who thinks he can. 

45 



v/ 



A French Girl's Idea of America 

During four years of the great world war which 
began in 1914 and which Germany started in the hope 
of enriching herself at the expense of other nations, 
parts of France and all of Belgium were held as captive 
territory by German armies. 

School children in these captured regions saw Ger- 
man armies come and destroy with sword, cannon, gas 
and fire. Before their eyes their homes were shot to 
pieces, their older sisters were taken to Germany for 
hard work in fields or factories; their food was eaten 
by Germans ; in the skies above their heads they saw 
German airplanes bringing death and destruction. 

When these children asked why the Germans were so 
cruel, they were given the true answer, namely, German 
boys and girls have been taught in their schools that 
when nations deal ivith one another might makes right, 
force is greater than justice, and war for more power is 
more glorious than fair dealing with neighbor nations. 

Naturally with war about them, the topic of conver- 
sation was war. When homes have just been destroyed 
or are in danger of being destroyed it is natural that 
children and parents should talk of the destroyer. 

Naturally, too, children were asked to write school 
essays about the thing which was filling their lives. 

One French girl of twelve wrote an essay about the 
difference between the aims of the Germans and their 
Allies— Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey — called 
the Central Powers, because they are in central Europe, 

46 



and the aims of France and her Allies, including our 
own country. She wrote of the German armies on one 
side of a tiny river called the Yser (eez-er), of the 
French and British on the other, and of our nation three 
thousand miles away. 

This is what the French girl wrote: 

It was only a little river, almost a brook; it was called 
the Yser. One could talk from one side to the other 
without raising one's voice, and the birds could fly over 
it with one sweep of their wings. And on the two banks 
there were millions of men, the one turned toward the 
other, eye to eye. But the distance which separated them 
was greater than the stars in the sky; it was the distance 
which separates right from injustice. 

The ocean is so vast that the seagulls do not dare to 
cross it. During seven days and seven nights the great 
steamships of America, going at full speed, drive through 
the deep waters before the lighthouses of France come 
into view; but from one side of the ocean to the other 
hearts are touching. 



The governments of Germany and Austria 
have convinced us that they are without 
honor and do not intend justice. They ob- 
serve no covenants and accept no principle 
but force and their own interest 
The price of peace is impartial justice in 
every item of the settlement, no matter 
whose interest is crossed. — Our President 



47 



Our Engineers in France 

Before our National Army had even begun to drill, 
our engineers were in France, building railroads, high- 
ways, and hospitals; looking after the water supply; 
mining; surveying, and setting machinery were only a 
few of the things they had to do. 

The railroaders worked steadily repairing the shell- 
torn roads of France and building new tracks from the 
sea to the American front. The first American loco- 
motive to go over the tracks had a most triumphal 
progress right across France. ' Its sides were hung with 
garlands, like a Eoman conqueror of old, and its bell 
never ceased ringing until the engineer discovered that 
a bell in France is a signal for a gas attack, and that if 
he obliged his audiences to wear gas masks continually, 
they would not be able to see his proud engine so well. 

Once our railroaders had the task of taking up bodily 
a railroad in England and laying it in France. 

A regiment of lumber men worked day and night to 
supply the American army with the lumber it needed. 
Two hundred thousand feet were sawed up every day. 
A regiment of construction men turned the lumber into 
huts for soldiers, gigantic warehouses, refrigerating 
plants, hospitals and stores. "Whole cities sprung up 
over night. The great docks that line our base in French 
harbors were made over here and taken piecemeal across 
the ocean. 




49 



The extent of this work may be realized when we 
remember that Congress appropriated $25,000,000 for 
one base alone. 

Foresters have begun to restore the mutilated forests. 
Where they could not save the battered trees they 
planted new seedlings. They also bandage together the 
fruit trees which the Huns sawed apart and in many 
cases their surgery has saved the tree. 

By experimenting the engineers have discovered that 
the French farmers need have no fear in turning up un- 
exploded shells with ploughs. This has done much to 
restore interest in farming. It is also comforting to 
know that the great shells have done no harm to the 
soil. They have only scattered the top layer, and after 
the war, the tanks' tractor will be just the thing for 
ploughing up the shell-torn ground. 

The first engineers to go over carried with them 
several American inventions. One was a searchlight, 
mounted on a collapsible tower. This light enabled 
gangs of men to work at night. They also brought trench 
digging machines. A trench digger consists of a con- 
tinuous belt of buckets, mounted on a tractor, and cap- 
able of scooping up, with a crew of five men to direct 
its movements, as much earth as a hundred men could 
shovel in the same time. 

Mining engineers, too, have their work to do. Fight- 
ing today is carried on in the air, on the ground and under 
the ground. "Sappers," the human moles of the army 
are called. They burrow down under the enemy's 

50 




© Brown Brothers 



As trenches look from the air 
51 



trenches and then blow them up. At Messines Eidge the 
British engineers blew up a whole hill. One of the sap- 
per tunnels now in France is 1,663 feet long. 

Bridge builders have been busy. In following up the 
German retreat from the Vesle (Vale) to the Aisne (Ane) 
the bridges across the Vesle were of highest importance. 
The engineers had made a detailed examination of both 
banks of the river, often under fire. They made maps 
showing every rock and tree, and places where the banks 
were marshy and impassable for guns, and places where 
the earth was firm and adaptable for bridges. 

The bridge builders knew exactly where to throw their 
bridges. No time was lost. The main body of the 
troops were able to keep up close to the heels of and 
support the smaller advance detachments. Supplies of 
food, water and ammunition were rushed across with- 
out delay to the fighting men. 

"Skyographers" have also gone over. They are men 
whose work is to decipher or interpret photographs 
taken from aeroplanes. A picture taken from a swiftly 
moving airplane up in the air several hundred or sev- 
eral thousand feet is quite different from one taken with 
a stationary camera within ten feet of a stationary ob- 
ject. "What seems to the untrained eye only a white 
speck or lines that cross one another is recognized by 
the skyographer as a big cannon or airdrome. 

The signal engineers have a dangerous job. They 
advance with the vanguard of the army and string their 
telephone wires right under the enemy's eyes. The 
signal corps are the ears of the army. 

52 












©Underwood & Underwood 

Testing the "ears of the army" 



The engineers who put together our big guns must 
be men of muscle and of brain. In one of our big guns 
there are 7,990 parts. The fitting together of all these 
pieces is a big job and a delicate one. 

Our engineers have also proved they can put up a 
stiff fight when called upon. It was a company of our 
engineers that dropped picks and shovels when the 
British General Carey was trapped, and helped him 
hold the enemy for several days until reinforcements 
arrived. 

When the English General Byng broke through the 
German lines at Cambrai our engineers were with him. 

53 



They found part of a German railroad and hitched it up 
with their own for eight miles. These engineers proudly 
claim that they made the first link with Berlin! 

The 11th New York Engineers were working just a 
mile and a half behind the British front line trenches. 
The day after Thanksgiving they heard the sound of 
heavy firing. They did not think anything of that, 
however, for they were accustomed to working under 
fire. Suddenly a barrage began to envelop them. They 
did not want to think the Germans were coming for 
they had work to do, but the barrage began to drive the 
fact home with deadly force. 

When the officers realized that it was indeed the boche 
their first thought was for their men. Lt. Holstrom col- 
lected such of his company as he could and brought them 
back to safety. The others of the company crawled into 
dugouts or a sunken road to escape the raking fire. 

Just as Holstrom reached safety with his men, a 
brother lieutenant staggered back with the news that a 
soldier wounded by a shell was lying out in the open. 
Holstrom at once dashed back with a sergeant to rescue 
their comrade. They not only saved their friend, but 
they returned again under heavy fire to save a wounded 
Tommy. 

So, while not classified as fighting troops, the engineers 
have more than once taken guns and given "Fritz" a little 
entertainment. It was after such an occasion that an 
American Major General inspected one of the battalions 
of the regiment. 

54 



This battalion had been attached, at different times, 
to both the French and the English. Repairing and con- 
structing roads, buildings bridges or digging tunnels is 
not easy on the clothing. As a man needed something 
new he was supplied by the quartermaster of the regi- 
ment with which or behind which he happened to be 
working. Many wardrobes had been increased also by 
articles gathered here and there without favor from 
French colonial troops, Portuguese and Chinese. 

When the engineers lined up for the inspection some 
had American sombreros or steel helmets, and others 
wore French and English headgear of various types. 
There were men with leather puttees, men with spirals, 
men with canvas leggings and men with no leggings. 
One corporal sported a pair of rubber boots. There 
was a great variety also of breeches and blouses and 
even arms. 

The general alighted from his automobile for the 
inspection, and after one glance at the troops, re- 
strained, with obvious difficulty, some strange emotion. 
He gathered himself together, however, and made his 
tour of the ranks, pausing just once before a tall private 
who was dressed in the contributions of four armies and 
carried a French rifle, minus a breech bolt. 

"Can't shoot Germans with that," said the major gen- 
eral. 

"No, sir," agreed the private, "but you can harpoon 



55 



After the inspection the major general made a little 
speech. It was as follows : 

"I want to compliment you men on what you have done. 
From all I hear, you have been doing wonderful work, 
work beyond mere verbal praise. But I want to say 
that there hasn't been a stranger looking battalion of 
soldiers since Villa's Bandits." 

Since then these engineers have been known as Villa's 
Bandits. 

Adapted from New York Sun, Times, Tribune, World 




© Committee on Public Information 

One signal corps at work 



The final peace must be a justice that plays 
no favorites and knows no standard but 
the equal rights of the several peoples con- 
cerned. — Our President 



56 



A War Cabinet in Schools 

Chicago, our second largest city, has a great war 
museum where war wonders of every kind are exhibited. 

In this museum are shown great cannon that shoot 
twenty miles ; aeroplanes which fly five miles high ; tanks 
with the caterpillar wheels which walk and fall over 
ditches, through barbed wire fences and over machine 
gun nests, as though they were on a level road with noth- 
ing in the way; caps, helmets, gas masks, cannon and 
letters captured from the Germans ; anything and every- 
thing which has to do with the world war. 

Great cities can have cannon, airships, tanks in places 
big enough to show them and to hold the throngs of 
visitors which wish to see them. 

Smaller cities can easily have less ambitious museums 
which tell the story of their part in the war and which 
exhibit objects of special interest. 

Because no community is without war sacrifice, war 
heroes and courageous patriotism, it is possible for all 
to have a war cabinet. 

In one school on an island near a great city is the war 
cabinet here photographed. It was unveiled and dedi- 
cated at graduation exercises in June, 1918. 

For this war cabinet, pupils and parents of the neigh- 
hood are collecting souvenirs of the battlefield, posters 
used in Eed Cross and Thrift Stamp drives, interesting 
letters from neighborhood boys and former graduates of 
the school who have gone overseas, mementoes of every 
kind which will show the part the school has taken in 

57 



the war and the events which have been of most interest 
to the school. 

The war cabinet was made by the children in the school 
workshop. Photographs of alumni who are now at the 
front, relics of the war such as a hand grenade, an air- 
plane bomb, darts, and articles used by the local exemp- 
tion board, were brought by pupils and first placed in 
the cabinet. 




■■Hill ir 



A war record of activities of the children since the 
war began with banners and medals awarded to the 
school for excellent patriotic service was also stored 
in the cabinet. 

At the unveiling, a Boy Scout representing the army 
and a Junior Naval Eeserve representing the navy, stood 
at the sides of the cabinet which was draped with the 



58 



national colors, while a girl in Red Cross costume re- 
cited the following dedication: 

We, the children of Public School 8, in the Borough of 
Richmond, City of New York, assembled at our grad- 
uating exercises, on Thursday, June 27, 1918, do unveil 
this War Cabinet, containing records, photographs of 
our boys at the front, banners, and other articles con- 
nected ivith the World War for Democracy, in order that 
the school children of the coming generations may look 
upon these tokens as mementoes of the crisis through 
which our beloved country ivas passing at the time that 
we went to school. 



The Doughboy 

A doughhoy is an American soldier, and American 
soldiers, infantrymen, artillerymen, medical department, 
signal corps sharps, officers and men alike, all are called 
doughboys. Our cartoonist is one, so is General Pershing. 

The term "doughboys" dates back to the Civil War 
when army wit was aroused by large globular brass but- 
tons on infantry uniforms. 

Somebody (he must have been a sailor) dubbed the 
buttons "doughboys" because they reminded him of 
the boiled dumplings of raised dough served in ships' 
messes and known to all sailors as doughboys. 

Originally it referred only to an enlisted infantryman, 
but the A. E. P. applies it to all branches and all grades 
of the service. 

From The Stars and Stripes 

59 



American Heroes of the Marne 

Directly after the early successes of the Germans in 
the second hattle of the Marne the Americans were 
forced back on Conde-en-Brie (Coan-day-ong-bree). 

The French commander informed the American gen- 
eral that it was perfectly well understood that his troops 
had fought hard, contesting every foot of the German 
advance, and, as the result of the battle was in no way 
imperiled, it was not expected that a counter-attack 
would be launched immediately. He therefore sug- 
gested an hour's rest for the troops. 

This is the answer sent back by the American general : 

We regret being unable, on this occasion, to 
follow the counsels of our masters the French, but 
the American flag has been forced to retire. This 
is unendurable and none of our soldiers would 
understand not being asked to do whatever is 
necessary to repair a situation which is humil- 
iating to us and unacceptable to our country's 
honor. We are going to counterattack. 

The American counter-attack was not only launched, 
but the lost ground was recovered with the gain of an 
additional half-mile for good measure. This was on 
July 15, and the American doughboys have fully justi- 
fied their commander's estimate of their fighting spirit, 
for the Huns ever since have been on the retreat before 
the fierce-fighting, hard-hitting "handful of undis- 
ciplined Americans." 

Many thrilling stories are constantly coming from 
the front telling of the heroic acts of Uncle Sam's boys 

60 



in stemming the desperate drive of the Germans and 
turning it into an Allied victory. 

Three Americans captured a German boat east of 
Chateau Thierry and rowed across the Marne under 
cover of darkness before the German retreat began. 

They hid in bushes during the day, exploring the 
banks and discovering enemy machine guns. Then they 
re-entered the boat and pushed their explorations fur- 
ther. The Germans discovered them and opened an 
intense machine-gun fire. The Americans escaped by 
diving overboard and swimming, half the time under 
the surface. 

The next night they led a strong patrol of their pals 
across and extended their investigations^ obtaining 
valuable information concerning the disposition of Ger- 
man units. 

An artillery company ran out of ammunition. Vol- 
unteers were called for to go over a three mile stretch 
of shell-swept road for a fresh supply. Every man 
volunteered, and when the needed number were selected 
they drove their galloping horses, attached to bounding 
caissons, through a rain of shells. Several of the ani- 
mals were killed, and on the return trip the number 
of horses was so greatly reduced by the raking fire 
that the men were forced to cut the dead and wounded 
beasts free from their harnesses and, taking the traces 
themselves, dash along beside the still uninjured ani- 
mals. 

61 



The accuracy of aim acquired by Private Book Hill, 
while hunting squirrels in the woods around Gadsden, 
Ala., was satisfactorily tested when thirty-eight Taubes 
(Tow-bes, dove shaped German airplanes) in squadron 
formation, began to sweep the American trenches in the 
Argonne (Are-gun). The Alabama squirrel sniper was 
called upon by Lieut. Stephen Townsend to prove his 
vaunted marksmanship. He did. 

Hill jumped on the parapet with his automatic rifle, 
and the second shot out of the clip hit a pilot and 
brought down the machine. 

This record of bringing down a plane with a rifle was 
tied a few minutes later by Private Matthew Foody, of 
New York, who also brought down one with his automatic 
rifle. These exploits are said to be unprecedented, and 
both the men were cited in French Army orders. 




© Underwood & Underwood 

A German airplane captured by Ameri- 
cans on the Adriatic Sea 



62 



Despite the efforts of the German officers to impress 
upon their men that the Americans were not worth con- 
sidering the bodies have adopted a new cry. Private 
Francis D. Hallock tells how French dragoons drove a 
German major and several hundred men out of a grove 
near Ploisy (Plaw-zi). All hands were in the air, says 
Hallock, and the men were yelling: "Americans! 
Kamerad !" 

In the case of a recaptured American tank, however, 
the Germans were not given an opportunity to practice 
their new yell. 

Private William Cunningham, of Perkinston, Miss., 
described how part of his squad recaptured a tank and 
turned the machine guns on the Germans. 

"The tank," he said, "had been stalled, and the Ger- 
mans, driving out the French, had taken possession and 
were working the machine guns at one end against our 
men. Two of us slipt around the tank, and the fellow 
with me unstrapt a pickax which he carried on his back 
for digging-in purposes. With this he pried open the 
iron door on the side of the machine and another man 
threw in a grenade, killing or wounding all the Germans. 
We then unstrapt the guns and carried them along." 

An American battery on the banks of the Marne had 
shelled the Germans for seventy- two hours. The Amer- 
ican battery was in the open, and of the thirty enemy 
batteries which were located in the sector, five were 
concentrating their fire on the American battery. 

63 



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© Committee on Public Information 

Hiding a big American gun in France 

During the first hour of the bombardment every tele- 
phone wire in the sector was cut by German shells. 
This meant that the battery was left without means of 
communicating with the American infantry whom it had 
to support. The infantry was in the river valley below. 

A young lieutenant volunteered to restore the liaison, 
or connection, himself. Taking a horse he rode down 
to the river, through the German barrage and back. 

During the night he galloped sixteen times between 
the battery and the river, always under fire. He had 
eight horses shot under him, and on the last journey he 
himself was shot in the knee. But he succeeded ! At no 
time was the infantry left unsupported by the battery. 

Lt. Martin Wheeler had a platoon at an advanced post 
which was surrounded on all sides. He ordered his men 
to lie down in the trenches while he scouted along until 
he found a path. Sending his men ahead, he took a 
rifle himself and came last protecting the retreat while 

64 



the Germans were trying to close in on them. He 
brought all his men back in safety. 

An observer in a front trench was noted by his com- 
rades in the trench behind. His head was visible over 
the trench parapet, because only by so exposing himself 
could he watch the enemy. Every second of such ex- 
posure meant that he took a chance on death. 

A shell came along and cut down a tree near by. It 
fell right across him, we thought, but after a moment his 
head reappeared in the same place, with the tree trunk 
a foot above it. The tree had lodged on a rock. He 
stayed there for an hour and kept us correctly informed. 
When the fight slackened he sent back a runner: 

"Pass the word," said the runner, "that the forward 
observer asks to be relieved for a few minutes to get a 
breath of air." 

Heroism? There is no end of heroism. 

Lt. McVickers of the artillery went over the top with 
the infantry and established himself in a tall tree in 
advance of our line in spite of a dozen boche snipers. 
He struck matches repeatedly in order to see his instru- 
ments. Finally they got a machine gun turned upon him 
but he had finished, so he scrambled down coolly and 
walked away. 

Private J. W. Miley was publicly mentioned for his 
bravery, coolness, and persistence. An overloaded 
ration cart broke down under a barrage. He stopped to 
make temporary repairs, and, thinking all of the time 
of his hungry comrades in the trenches, he continued 

65 



risking his life every minute until lie delivered his 
supplies in the darkness and returned. 

An exploding shell buried a doughboy so that only 
his head showed above the dirt. His struggles to extri- 
cate himself only exhausted him. 

Along came a pal on his way to a dressing station, 
with a dangerous head wound. This second doughboy 
stopped and began digging out the buried man. Finally 
his strength failed him and he fell unconscious. He re- 
covered somewhat and resumed his digging. 

"You go and get your wound dressed ; it's more serious 
than my trouble/' the buried doughboy declared. "Some 
one will find me." 

The other refused to go and fell unconscious again. 
At last his companion, by persistence and ingenuity, 
managed to extricate himself. Although suffering from 
a badly wounded arm, he dragged his pal back to the 
dressing station. Twice on the way they were bowled 
over by exploding shells. 

Chaplain Bingham lost his way and was captured by 
four Germans. They stripped him of his buttons and 
silver crosses and sent him to the rear escorted by two 
Germans. 

One of these men became most insulting. He said 
with a sneer, that he would not walk behind any Ameri- 
can. Both called the chaplain vile names as they walked 
ahead. 

The chaplain, enraged by this treatment, seized the 
rifle of one captor and knocked him on the side of the 

66 




©Committee on Public Information 

head. The other one he shot. Then he returned safely 
to the American lines, where he was christened "the 
fighting parson." 

At headquarters the commanding officer with a map 
in front of him, and his ear at the telephone gave out 
curt commands. Orderlies rushed in and out. "A mes- 
sage from Captain Williams," said one of the aids. 
The messenger was a mere boy, yet his pallid, grimy 
face was stern under the steel helmet as he stood erect 
and soldier-like in front of the colonel. The command- 
ing officer took the message, read it and started to give 
an order, but checked himself, as he happened to glance 
at the boy. 

"My boy, how long have you been without eating!" 
he asked. 



67 



"Forty-eight hours, sir," replied the boy, collapsing 
and breaking into tears from nervousness. 

"Get something to eat here and take a sleep," said 
the colonel. "You need not go back." 

"No, sir, if you please," declared the boy, as he pulled 
himself to his feet again. "My company is up there in 
that woods fighting hard, and I am going back to it." 

The boy was Bugler Mclllroy. 

The American officers found it difficult to hold back 
their men, who seemed not to be content unless they 
were constantly moving on the enemy. They were all 
headed for Berlin. Regimental commanders were forced 
to send out couriers to call back some units, and in one 
case a company got so far ahead of schedule that an 
airplane had to be sent with a restraining message. 

Illustrating the spirit of the troops, a United Press 
correspondent at American Headquarters near Soissons 
(Swah-song) wrote the New York Evening World: 

When the attack was being planned Wednesday night, 
a certain American General suggested that his troops 
should advance to a certain point. 

"I fear it would be inadvisable," said his superior. 
"You can't go that far." 

"We can't!" exploded the General. "Any place I ask 
my boys to go they'll go !" 

A special correspondent of the New York Times, 
shortly after the German drive had been checked and 
the boys from the United States were nailing down 

68 



their gains, asked a French high officer what he thought 
of the conduct of the American troops. This was his 
reply : 

fi 'They have covered themselves with glory! They 
are glorious !" 

Adapted from The Literary Digest, New York Evening World, 
Globe, Sun, Times 



The Yankee Smile 

"Over there they remark that our fellows are always 
smiling." — Irvin S. Cohh, war correspondent. 

Over the sea they go with a smile, 

Never a thought of fear ! 
While fond hearts follow them, mile by mile, 

Blessing, and. prayer, and tear. 

Into the camp they go with a smile 

And a friendly helping hand, 
And a bit of a song, in soldier style, 

To hearten the waiting band. 

i 

Into the trench they go with a smile, 

Like the warmth of an unseen light, 
With whispered story or jest to wile 

The weary watch of the night. 

Into the fight they go with the smile 

Of a courage half divine, 
Whether they march in rank and file 

Or ride at the head of the line. 

Always smiling, come good or ill ! 

In the battle's smoke and noise, 
Facing death — they are smiling still, 

Our glorious Yankee Boys! 

— Madeline Bridges. 

Reprinted from Life of August 8, 1918. Copr. Life Pub. Co. 

69 



An American Heroine in France 

It was in France the day after a great battle. A 
relief squad of American girls was hurrying for imme- 
diate service behind the battle front. Trim and neat in 
their khaki uniforms, they marched along the broad 
highway following the ambulance corps with which they 
were detailed. 

Halt! Something had happened up front. Every 
girl in the squad craned her neck to its limit — just as 
they used to do when something happened to stop the 
school parade. But this was worse than anything that 
had ever happened at home. Their columns now were 
out on a very differ ent kind of march. Every moment's 
delay of ambulances, doctors and nurses meant prolonged 
suffering, even death, to men who were waiting for them, 
calling and praying for them up ahead. 

One of the girls, who had been accustomed to leading- 
lines of march at home, began to think of what would 
have been done if a fire had broken out in the big school 
back home. She found herself slipping through the lines 
of her comrades, then through the precise columns of 
Canadian infantrymen, in and out as best she could, past 
the mounted guns of the English. She felt more at 
home as she slipped ahead of a small detachment of 
her own countrymen, who were shifting their packs and 
shuffling impatient feet — for were not their French and 
Australian comrades, weary and bleeding, hungry and 
thirsty, still holding the front lines of defense with what 

70 



strength they had left after a day and night of bitter 
contest? 

It became more difficult to work her way forward. 
Empty trucks on their way to the rear stations for fresh 
provisions, filled-up ambulances, men in all kinds of 
uniforms and on all sorts of errands were crowding past 
them. She reached the open space where several roads 
crossed and where many people and animals, among all 
sorts of machinery, were jostling and pushing, or meekly 
waiting to be pushed into or out of the various roads 
that met at this point. 

Here the girl climbed upon a halted wagon from which 
she could overlook the whole space. "Yes," she was 
saying to herself, "these are the troops ordered to the 
rear, those are the ammunition wagons needed so ter- 
ribly at the front. Here are the sad-eyed grandparents 
and bewildered mothers with children and all the worldly 
goods which it was possible to bring away from their 
destroyed homes. None of these lines know where they 
are to go — -but I do ; I overheard an officer directing some 
of them just now — but most of them are just dazed and 
are getting in one another's way. What would one of 
our traffic cops in America do about it! Why, there's 
just the safety zone he would take possession of — the 
concrete block with the high cross to which all these 
people look up eagerly and expectantly." 

Before the girl knew it she was standing up there 
against the bare cross. She can't tell today just how 
she managed to do it, but when the people looked up 

71 



their eyes met a quick, decisive look and a direct- 
ing, outpointing arm which inspired confidence. It 
didn't take long to get the line straightened out, 
for she used the very methods which our American 
traffic policemen, who stand on crowded street corners 
and show traffic how to keep moving, have taught us to 
respect and admire. 

Her own commanding officer came along and gave her 
a commending look, and said, "Stay on the job until I 
send you relief. You've saved more than one village for 
France today." 

Adapted from letter written by Smith College Unit 

Carrier Pigeons in the War 

One day a patrol boat on duty in the British Channel 
was surprised and shelled by a submarine. It was 
badly hit, but it put up a good fight, and the U-boat 
was finally put to flight. 

The condition of the patrol boat, however, was 
extremely dangerous. Unless help was received it 
would go down. 

There was one carrier pigeon left in the pigeon 
basket, and upon it depended the safety of the boat 
and its crew. 

The captain wrote the location of the patrol and the 
necessity for immediate help on a piece of paper, stuffed 
the paper in the capsule attached to the pigeon's leg 
and released the bird. There was a heavy storm, but 
the bird breasted its way through the wind and the dark 

72 



clouds to its shore loft. Half an hour later the patrol 
and its crew were rescued. 

Once, too, a British patrol smack was torpedoed at 
dawn, and what was left of the little boat sank in four 
minutes, leaving the crew struggling in the water. In 
that four minutes, however, the skipper had scribbled 
a message, attached it to the leg of his naval pigeon 
and sent the bird flying as the vessel sank under him. 
Unfortunately, the pigeon was seen from the subma- 
rine. Shots were fired at it, and the crew of the 
smack, struggling for their lives in the water, saw if 
hit. A few minutes later it fluttered down on the deck 
of a boat twelve miles away, bleeding and with five oi 
its flight feathers shot away. The skipper of the boat 
looked at the S. 0. S. message and started off at once 




© Underwood & Underwood 

Aviators send messages by pigeons 
73 



with all the speed he had. Tn half an hour the crew 
of the sunken smack were being hauled aboard and 
given as tender care as had been bestowed on their 
wounded pigeon. The pigeon recovered, and is back 
again at sea this very minute. 

Hundreds of similar stories might be told. Over 
1,500 messages have been handled by the Pigeon Service 
of the British navy alone. 

Tanks depend on pigeons to carry their messages. 
An airman when he discovers enemy supplies of food 
and ammunition reports the location by pigeon post. 
Trench fighters and scouting parties often find the 
feathered ally a more trusty messenger than the rocket 
or the wig-wag. 

In fact there is no branch of the service in which they 
are not used. 

France has announced officially that the carrier pigeon 
is successful in delivering ninety-seven messages out of 
a hundred. When the enemy has destroyed telephone 
wires, and wireless outfits ; when the rocket, the run- 
ner, and the wig-wag all fail, the carrier pigeon will 
bring the message through barrage fire, cavalry charges 
and infantry attacks safely home. 

The pigeon used for carrier purposes today is the 
type known as the Belgian homer, the fastest flier in 
the world. It has a deep breast, showing great lung 
power, a smooth, shining body, and weighs from ten to 
twelve ounces. 

74 




© Committee on Public Information 

American officers in France waiting for carrier pigeons 

When released in the heaviest barrage, it will swoop 
np, circle once or twice to get its bearings, then start 
for home at such a terrific speed that no anti-aircraft 
gun has one chance in a thousand to stop it. 

On the battle fields pigeons are cared for in movable 
coops, that look something like ordinary moving vans, 
and are set about a mile apart from five to twenty miles 
in the rear of the first-line trenches. In these coops are 
nesting boxes, storage room for food, and accommoda- 
tion for one or two men, who are constantly on duty. 

When a pigeon flies home with a message he flies 
straight to his own cote, and enters through a door 
obstructed by wires. The wires hang loosely and will 
swing in but not out. When a bird enters, the move- 
ment of the wires sets off an electric bell. At once the 
attendant knows a pigeon has returned. He catches 
the pigeon, takes the message from the capsule, and the 
pigeon's work is done. 

75 



Why does a pigeon fly home as soon as it is set free! 
How does it find its way? No one can answer these 
questions. No one knows what sense, instinct or intel- 
ligence he has. Whatever it is, it brings him straight 
to his cote regardless of distance, direction or condi- 
tions. Through wind and storm, through fire and smoke 
he bravely flies until he reaches the shelter of his home. 

How can Uncle Sam break the pigeons he buys for 
service in France of their instinct to return to the 
United States? He cannot. Once a homer is settled it 
is no good to our government except for breeding pur- 
poses. The only birds useful for courier purposes are 
those that are brought into service before they are old 
enough to settle. These are eight weeks old or less, 
and are called "squeekers." 

Nor can the "squeekers" that are now delivered to 
the various training camps be used for anything but 
breeding, or training the pigeon experts for the work 
they are to perform in France. The birds that will be 
used "over there'' are those that are "settled" in the 
camouflaged lofts behind our lines — birds either raised 
there, or shipped from the United States while too 
young to become settled. 

The training of the young homing pigeon is a fasci- 
nating game. Lieut. William L. Butler, Department 
Pigeon Officer, Signal Service Corps, thus describes it: 

"When the birds are old enough to fly, which is at 
about the age of ten weeks, their training should begin. 
First you let them out on the walk or landing of their 

76 



lofts. They must be let alone there, so that they can 
take a first mental photograph of their surroundings. 
If you scare a homer away before he gets that mental 
photograph you may lose him. 

"After he is familiar with his surroundings give him 
his first flight. Take him out about a mile. He will, 
when released, fly back to his cote. Then take him two 
or three miles; then five, then ten, then twenty-five. 
After that you can keep on increasing the distance. 

"Now as to their speed. They can make two miles a 
minute, under favorable conditions, up to thirty miles. 
They have flown as far as eight hundred miles on a 
single flight. 

."At Camp Funston, just the other day, we had a 
peculiar sort of speed test. We sent messages a distance 
of five miles — by dog, wireless and pigeon. Which 
message was delivered first? The pigeon. Sounds im- 
possible, doesn't it? But it's true. The fact is that a 
fast homer can fly five miles in about two and one-half 
minutes, and it takes longer than that to relay a fair- 
sized message and deliver it." 

The United States government needs 25,000 racing 
homers. If you have any, why not let Uncle Sam have 
them for this great fight? 

Adapted from Philadelphia Press and Illustrated World 



Shall the assertion of right be haphazard by 
casual alliance, or shall there be a common 
concert to oblige the observance of common 
rights? There shall be a league of nations, 
answers our President 

77 



Lufbery, American Ace 

Major Eaoul Lufbery, the first famous American ace, 
climbed in his airplane from obscurity to fame in less 
than two years. 

His parents were American. He was born in France 
and educated in America. 

At nineteen he set out to see the world. He served 
with the American army in the Philippines and saw 
service under the French flag in Tripoli. In Bombay 
he was a ticket collector. At Saigon he became assistant 
to a French exhibition aviator and was decorated by the 
King of Cambodia. 

July, 1916, found him a cadet in the Lafayette Esca- 
drille. By August he had become a sergeant, and had 
three German machines to his credit. 

Indeed two combats a day kept both his clothes and his 
machine in a shot-riddled condition. 

The French official reports cited him thus: "A model 
of skill and courage. He has distinguished himself in 
many long distance bombardments and by daily combats." 

By April, 1917, he had bagged more of the enemy's 
air craft than any other member of the Escadrille. A 
few months later all France resounded with his praise 
when he swooped from behind a cloud, his favorite 
method of attack, and plunged into a squadron of five 
German planes. His machine gun sent one earthward 
immediately, and the others fled with the lone knight of 
the air in pursuit. 

78 



By October, 1917, Lufbery had brought down his thir- 
teenth adversary, and forced five others to fall. 

The French were lavish in their recognition of his 
exploits. All the Allies had decorated him. He had won 
the Croix de Guerre, the British Military Cross, the 
French Military Medal and the Legion of Honor. He 
wrote his brother at that time, "I am looking like a 
Christmas tree, with medals all over my chest." 

The remark was typical. Lufbery fought, took his 
honors, and probably died with a smile. 

Early in the morning of May 19, 1918, a giant German 
airplane was seen to move slowly right over the Amer- 
ican airdrome. The alarm signal was. sounded, and two 
indignant American aviators shot up in the air. Their 

bullets, however, seemed to fall as harmlessly as rain 
■ 

upon the huge monster, which proved to be a "frying 
tank," with a wing spread of 60 feet, two armored guns, 
gunners and a steel pilot house. 

One of our attacking planes had to land for lack of 
ammunition, and then Lufbery asked permission to 
ascend. He had just returned from a leave of absence, 
which he had voluntarily cut short, for, as he said to his 
comrades, "You fellows can't get all the easy pickings; 
I heard how you were knocking them out and decided to 
hurry back." 

Sweeping up head first at the monster plane, Lufbery 
was seen to hesitate, probably because his engine had 
jammed. But in a second he was back at the attack, 
firing his gun again and again. Suddenly a thin flame 

79 



shot out from his machine which hung for a moment 
suspended, and then darted down 6,000 feet to earth. At 
4,500 feet the ace was seen to rise and then leap from his 
plane, which was now in flames. 

He had chosen the easier death. His machine landed 
in a garden behind the lines, where only a few ashes of 
it remained. When his friends reached his body it had 
already been reverently straightened out by the French 
peasants who had covered it with flowers. 

"Rest well, Major Lufbery," said the French General 
at his grave, "close by the martyrs to our great cause. 
Your glorious exploits ivill inspire in us the spirit of 
sacrifice till the day when humanity's enemy shall finally 
be vanquished. Au revoir. ,y 



A Texan Airman's Holiday 
Lieutenant Chamberlain appeared at a British aviation 
camp on July 27, 1918, and informed the major in com- 
mand that he had personal, but not official, permission 
to visit the camp. This is borne out by the young man's 
superior, who says Lieutenant Chamberlain had asked to 
be permitted to go up near the front during a furlough 
because he desired to get some more experience before 
resuming his work. 

The British commander was in need of aviators, and 
as there was a bombing squadron about to leave told 
Lieutenant Chamberlain he could go along. On this 
flight the young American brought down one German 

80 



airplane in flames and sent another whirling down out 
of control. 

The next day came Lieutenant Chamberlain's wonder- 
ful exploit. He was one of a detachment of thirty avi- 
ators who went out over the battlefield through which 
the Germans were being driven by the Allies. 

As the thirty machines circled about over the fleeing 
Teutons, they were attacked by an equal number of Ger- 
man machines. It was a hurricane battle from the first, 
and almost at the beginning of the combat the British 
lost three planes. 

In the tempest of bullets that roared about his machine 
Lieutenant Chamberlain's engine was damaged. One of 
his machine guns became jammed, and he seemed to be 
out of the action. But instead of starting for home he 
remained to offer assistance to two other airplanes which 
had been attacked by twelve German machines. 

His machine had lost altitude, owing to engine trouble, 
but when he was attacked by a German he opened such 
a hot fire that the enemy went into a dive toward the 
earth. 

His two companions were now engaged in a life and 
death struggle, and Lieutenant Chamberlain went to their 
assistance. His action probably saved the lives of the 
two Englishmen. 

His engine was now working better. He climbed up 
toward the enemy, and, with a burst of fire, sent one of 
them crashing to the earth. A second was shattered 
with another volley from his machine gun. Then Lieu- 

81 



: ■ 




82 



tenant Chamberlain looped out of a cordon of enemy 
machines which had gathered to finish him, and as he 
sailed away he shot the wing off another German machine. 

The leader of the German squadron came straight at 
him, but was met with such a torrent of bullets that his 
airplane joined the others sent to earth by the American. 

The lieutenant then turned for the British lines. His 
engine had "gone dead" and he was forced to volplane, 
carefully picking his way through the smoke clouds of 
shells fired at him by the enemy's anti-aircraft cannon. 

As he made a wide sweep toward his destination he 
saw beneath him a column of German troops, and into 
it he poured a gust of machine gun bullets from the gun 
which had been jammed, but which he had succeeded in 
putting into action again. The Germans scattered, and 
Lieutenant Chamberlain flew on for an eighth of a mile 
and came to earth. 

He found that he could not carry off the equipment of 
his machine, so he took his compass and started running 
across the fields. As he did so he encountered a patrol 
of three Germans. He shouted to them to surrender, 
waving the compass above his head like a bomb. Two of 
the enemy ran, but the third surrendered. 

The American started again for the British lines, but 
came upon a wounded French officer, whom he picked up 
and carried, driving his prisoner before him. He waded 
a brook under heavy fire and finally arrived within the 
British lines in safety with the French officer and the 
German prisoner. 

83 



He then reported "ready for duty," asked the major 
in command of the British airmen not to make any report 
of the affair and refused to give his name. The major 
was unable to keep the affair quiet, and the full details 
were made a part of his official report of the day's fight- 
ing. 

Lieut. Edmund G. Chamberlain of San Antonio, Texas, 
was recommended for the Victoria Cross and the Con- 
gressional Medal of Honor for the exploits which he 
begged the British officer not to mention. 

Released by the Committee on Public Information 




© Committee on Public Information 

Even aviators like mascots 
84 



Two Brothers in France, A. E. F. 

to 

Home Folks in America 



"Bill" is William Lewis Ettinger, 20, and "Al" is Albert M. Ettin- 
ger, 17 — letters kindly loaned for this reader by Superintendent W. L. 
Ettinger, New York City. Opening and concluding salutations are 
omitted in these extracts. 

France, June 26, 1918. 

Well, I am one happy boy tonight and you have 
another happy one also because Al and I have met over 
here; in fact, we spent part of yesterday, all last night, 
and a good deal of today together! Isn't that dandy! 

Well, that kid looks fine — you would hardly recognize 
him — and he is not a kid any more, he is a man. Gee! 
I couldn't take my eyes off him. It all happened 
this way: . . . [news of brother's nearness — long 
walk in search — went to wrong place — long walk back.] 

We started again early in the morning (yesterday 

morning) and when we got to the little town of B 

sure enough there was old husky Al straddling a motor 
bike as large as life. Honestly, I was so happy to see 
him I nearly bawled. 

We put up at a swell hotel and had a big 
feed. . 

Al and I had a big double French bed together, and it 
sure did bring back memories of other days. Of course 
we couldn't sleep for half the night on account of hav- 

85 



ing so much to say to one another. The dirty boche 
tried to spoil our holiday by pulling an air raid, but 
we didn't even give them a tumble although a couple of 
officers in the next room got up and dressed. 

Well, we left a call for six this morning, and started 
on our long hike for Al's place again. No morning ever 
seemed more beautiful. After stopping at a farmhouse 
10 kilometres out for a bowl of fresh milk and fresh bread 
and creamy butter, we had the luck to get a lift in a 
wagon, for the best remaining part of the trip, and 
arrived at camp to find that luckily Al and Jimmy were 
well "covered up" by friends and so had not even been 
missed. 

Well, I don't think there was ever a boy so proud 
of his brother as I am of Al. If you could only see how 
manly he has grown and how all his comrades (and his 
is a regiment of fine fellows) respect and love him, you 
could get an idea how I feel. When I was inquiring 
for him yesterday I would hear on every hand, "Red 
Ettinger, sure, I know him — fastest rider in the division 
— you're his brother, aren't you? — look a lot like him 
anyway." Well, believe me, nobody can ever pay me 
a greater compliment. Jimmy James says that even 
in the darkest nights when he passes any regiment in 
the division going up to or coming out of the trenches, 
they all shout, "There's our boy — there's Red — Hi, Red! 
Go it ole kid!" and so forth. Some popular boy. 

When I saw Al neither he nor Jimmy had slept for 
three days and three nights — traveling all the way from 

86 



Lorraine, and yon would think they would be all in, but 
not those soldiers. It made my heart ache when Al would 
tell in a matter-of-fact way of their long winter hikes 
through snow, and how his feet would get frozen and 
blistered, and how poorly they ate sometimes, and of 
those first hard winter months in the trenches, but it 
made me feel proud too in some indescribable way to 
have such a big, husky man for a brother. If he comes 
tomorrow I will let him read the letters of yours that 
I received today — one May 27, another June 3, another 
June 7th. He has not had mail in a long time. I gave 
him a picture of you. He wanted one, so I signed it 
and gave it to him. 

Your loving and happy son 

Bill. 



France, June 29, 1918. 

Well, folks, how are the home fires burning? Have 
not seen my handsome kid brother today, but had a 
great piece of luck the day before yesterday. Was 
washing the supper dishes (having been on K. P.) when 
who should come diving into camp but my dashing 
brother and his pal Bill (Jimmy) James on their motor- 
cycles, all dolled out with mean-looking automatics and 
everything. 

We had finished supper some half hour before, but 
were able to allay their hunger with a couple of eggs 

87 



apiece, bread and jam, said hunger being caused by the 
fact that the poor kids threw up a perfectly good meal 
to get an early start to see me; and when Al throws 
away any prospects of food to see me, you know well 
what an awful stand-in I must have with him. A real 
meal — potatoes and everything — Al said in an aggrieved 
voice. 

Bill. 



France, June 30, 1918. 

Your letters (the latest one dated June 7th) arrived 
two days ago, and I was certainly tickled to get them. 
Don't you worry, I will have a happy birthday all 
right, but not nearly so happy as if we were all together 
once more, which I hope will be the case this time next 
year or the year after that at the latest. (Cheerful 
bloke). 

Yesterday was another red-letter day for me because 
who should blow into camp about 3 P. M. but old Al 
on his smoky steed hitting only the high spots. We 
had a regular party over at "our rooms" (as we are "en 
repose," in a big room with a French bed and every- 
thing for one franc a day) in the afternoon, and he 
stayed for supper, which was an especially good one, it 
being Sunday night. He was tickled to hear that old 
banjosine of mine perform once more. 

After supper we had a great old talk-fest. . . . 

Bill, 

88 



France, July 5, 1918. 

I had a wonderful piece of luck in seeing Al at the 
hospital the day before we moved (we moved up to the 
front today — very quiet). 

By some wonderful good luck I got a trip to the large 
town where he was evacuated to and fell into conver- 
sation with a boy from Al's former outfit — the Pioneers. 
He said, "Al Ettinger is right in this hospital here — had 
a fall from his motorbike." Gee, whiz, and I had only 
said goodbye to the kid two days before! I felt pretty 
rotten and hustled up, and sure enough there was the old 
kid, his red head showing up among the white sheets 
like an Italian sunset. 

He said he had given up all hope of seeing me when 
he was sent to the hospital. He did not want to go, but 
they made him. I was able to go out and get him some 
chocolate, and also to lend him fifty francs, which he 
needed badly, being almost broke, and I knew from bitter 
experience that it is rotten to be short of funds and sick, 
both. "When I get paid I will send him some more. 

We had a wonderful feed tonight. Big day for us. 

Bill. 

July 23, 1918. 
. . . Personally, I am feeling fine and happy and 
lazy — the only trouble is that with all this Big Push going 
on and everything, we are not doing a darn thing . . . 
go out every fourth day and all we do when we do go out 
is to back our car up on post and stay there for 48 hours, 

89 



and then come back. Gee, we are safer over here than 
we would be crossing Broadway at 4 A. M. Well, this 
is a wild life — not. 

That is the way in the army, when there is anything 
going on you want to be in it, and when you are in it, 
you want just one thing, and that is to get out. 

Bill. 

France, July 26, 1918. 
So Fred Christie is over here already, is he! They 
don't give the drafted boys much time to think about 
their bright young futures, do they? . . . We are 
sure in a quiet place — neither side even slaps each other 
on the wrist here. Bill. 

July 1, 1918. 

Just a few lines to let you know that I am well and 
happy. Happy is no word for it because my hopes and 
prayers of months have been realized — dear old brother 
Bill and I have at last been reunited. Just imagine, 
only a few days after a move, we found ourselves only 
25 miles apart, and Bill surprised me one day, so con- 
sequently Bill, Steven Dresser, Billy James and I sneaked 
away to a city nearby and celebrated with a wondrous 
feed. 

Soon I moved again and luckily came within 12 miles 
of him. Was over to see him last night; had supper 
with the boys — they are a wonderful bunch — and heard 
Bill rag his old banjo. By golly, we were two happy 
boys, and happier more to know you will be happy! 

90 



I would write longer and would have written before 
only we have been quite busy. [A motorcycle courier.] 

Am writing this in a French Y. M. while resting on a 
trip, and am devouring a good cup of hot chocolate. 

Your second package arrived yesterday, containing 
two dandy big bath towels, and several bars of caramel 
candy. It was fine. Al. 

July 2, 1918. 

I am just having the life of Riley at present, taking it 
easy in the hospital. Just a few cuts on my leg from 
a collision yesterday, but not at all serious, so do not 
worry. The only thing I worry about is the coming meal. 

The eats here are fine, and I am in jolly company with 
several friends from the regiment. We are treated fine 
— American nurses and French nuns. 

Love and kisses, beaucoup, and do not worry. . 

Al. 

July 5, 1918. 

I am getting along finely now and expect to be back 
to the old Poppy pretty soon. Poppy is the name of my 
motorcycle — I christened it that because we see so many 
millions of these beautiful red flowers in the fields we 
pass by. 

I have a big cut on my kneecap from the accident, 
but neither is deep enough to cause any danger. . 

Well, Mumzie, be good and happy, and take care to 
have good times. Al. 

91 



July 7, 1918. 

Today is Sunday, and a beautiful Sabbath day. In 
the same ward with me are all fellows of my division, 
and several of my regiment. Larry Reilly, one of my 
pals and an old tent-mate at Camp Mills, is in another 
ward and comes up to see me frequently. Right beside 
me is a sergeant from another company in the regiment, 
and we are quite chummy. He is only nineteen years old. 
We have a lot of good humor in this banged-up gang, 
and that relieves the monotony. It is a French hospital, 
and as we are the first American troops in this partic- 
ular sector, there is a scarcity of reading matter. 

The French division Bill is attached to at the begin- 
ning of their last attack had 9,000 men. They came 
out with 1,000. Some battlers — believe me. Harry 
Mathis is in the hospital (not this one) with several 
shrapnel wounds. Two Frogs were killed by the same 
shell that wounded him, so he got off rather lucky. 

I am anxiously waiting to see Bill again. His outfit 
is about thirty miles from here, but I expect him to come 
any hour. He sure is one good brother, Mom. Did he 
tell you how he and Joe Calhoun were the only survivors 
out of thirty men in one dugout when the boche put over 
an attack? I suppose he did, so I will not repeat. Steve 
Dresser, who has won the Croix de Guerre twice, swears 
that Bill deserved it dozens of times. Do not be sur- 
prised when you read he has won it. 

Al. 
92 



Hospital Militaire, July 8, 1918. 

You cannot realize how happy I am this evening. 
Happy is no word for it — today has been a wonderful 
day for me. This evening I was surprised by Billy James 
who rode all the way in from the trenches to see me, and 
he brought beaucoup mail and a wonderful package from 
you. And yesterday Bill came to see me all the way 
from his sector. 

The mail brought two lovely letters from you dated 
May 26th and June 9th, one of them containing the 
money order you were so good to send. I could just 
love you to death for that, and those letters, and that 
wonderful package you sent by the French line con- 
taining fruit cake, chocolate, figs, Aunt Maggie's socks, 
candles, etc. — everything made me feel so happy. 

There was also a dandy letter from Churchie, one 
from Katherine, and one from Cousin Alicia — they 
cheered me up so. 

I am still as you can see in the hospital, but I expect 
to depart soon. My leg has lost its soreness, and the 
cuts are quite healed. I can walk around 0. K. already, 
and the sound of the distant guns is enough to make the 
dead arise and join the colors. 

That picture you saw of those fellows in Co. is 

bunk, if it was the same one I saw of them. 
Why, those fellows were only clerks in the adjutant's 
office, and never saw a trench. I know them all because 
I carry dispatches from headquarters to the trenches and 
to other headquarters of higher positions such as brigade 
and division. Al. 

93 



Convalescent Hospital No. 2, July 22, 1918. 

Well, I certainly have changed around some since my 
last letter. The day after I wrote to you I was evac- 
uated to a camp hospital, was kept there for several days, 
and had the hair-raising experience of an air raid. The 
boche did their best to hit the hospital, but fate was 
against them — instead of hitting us, they walloped a 
prison camp nearby in which there were several hundred 
German prisoners. They killed over a hundred of them, 
and wounded many more. Such is life in a hospital. 

Had the unique experience of riding on one of the 
American hospital trains while en route from the camp 
hospital to the base. They are wonderful — so comfortable 
and swell. 

My knee is entirely healed now, and is not even stiff. 
They sure did put me in enough hospitals to make a 
dead man well. And what do you think! In the village 
near this hospital some very progressive French people 
have an ice cream store. Imagine! real honest-to-good- 
ness ice cream, both vanilla and strawberry. I was so 
surprised when I first saw the ice cream that I nearly 
fainted — then I proceeded to revive myself by gorging 
beaucoup ice cream. Believe me, it was swell — one franc 
(20 cents) for a nickel plate, but it sure is worth it. 

Well, I wish I had more to write about. I would cer- 
tainly make this letter longer, but this place is dead, and 
I am praying for the old trenches and the Jerries again. 
I cannot sleep now without noise. When I get home 
I am going to rent a room on Sixth Avenue so the "L" 
will put me to sleep. Al. 

94 



A Man Named Brown 

Brown was a twenty-two year old shipping clerk some- \/ 
where in America. All day he handled invoices and bills 
of lading and made entries in his big books. On Satur- 
days in the summer he would go to the amusement park 
or a baseball game ; in the winter he went to the movies. 
Life for him was very uneventful. 

Then came the declaration of war. 

Before Brown realized it Uncle Sam had gathered 
him into his army; sent him to camp; taught him to 
live in the open ; to march ; to shoot ; to use a bayonet ; 
and to endure hardships. Finally while these things 
were yet new and strange, landed him in France, a full- 
fledged American soldier. 

This is the story of how Brown fulfilled the American 
idea of a first-class fighting man. 

Accidentally in command of a squad of thirteen men, 
he rounded up and captured behind the German lines 
159 men, including a major, a captain, two lieutenants, 
and a number of non-commissioned officers, and brought 
them through their own lines, prisoners to the American 
cage. 

This is how it happened: 

Brown had become separated from his company and 
was wandering in woods through which the Germans 
had swept. His beloved machine gun had been smashed 
and abandoned. By all the rules of the game he was 
due to surrender. 

95 



Just then lie encountered his captain, also lost and 
wandering in the woods. They joined forces and started 
out looking for adventure, with nothing but their wits 
and an automatic rifle as weapons. 

The two were in a thicket when they heard German 
machine guns firing behind them. 

"Why not capture them!" said Brown. 

"All right," said the captain. 

They crept up close and then charged. The stream 
of bullets killed the captain, but Brown's rifle made the 
German gunner hold up his hands. 

Just then a corporal arrived and, recruited up to full 
force, Brown led his army of two against the other 
machine gun, killing three gunners in the process. 

Attracted by the shooting, eleven other Americans 
came crawling out of the bushes, where they had been 
hiding. The thirteen went to look for bigger game. 
In a captured trench a company of Germans was discov- 
ered. Brown deployed his army, posting its members 
singly in all directions, and at a given signal the rifles 
began to speak. 

Soon a German major stepped out of the trench, and 
with his hands held high lustily yelled "Kamerad! 
Kamerad !" In the trench were a hundred Germans who 
surrendered. Brown started for the rear with his pris- 
oners. He had to bluff his way through the German 
lines. As they went along the company of thirteen 
gathered in fifty-nine more prisoners. 

96 



Of these four were killed by the German barrage, 
although all the Americans escaped. 

So 155 were turned over at the American cage and 
receipted for; the record being entered for all time in 
the story of American grit, bravery, and "will to win." 

Adapted from New York Globe 



Volunteers Cross No Man's Land 

Every time a steel helmet peeked above the shallow 
trench crest a German machine gun opened up. 

All night, every now and then, too often for safety, 
the same gun had been spitting bullets which came 
whizzing over the heads of our men in the trenches. 

When the order came to go across No Man's Land, 
establish contact with the boche and bring back pris- 
oners, it was hailed with great delight. It gave a chance 
to silence that gun. Volunteers for the raid were not 
lacking, even though the men knew that some of them 
who ventured forth would not return. 

The lieutenant who was to lead the party selected 
fourteen men to accompany him. A little after mid- 
night he took his men over the top and through the 
wires into No Man's Land. It was inky black. A man 
could not see his hand held before his face except when 
a German rocket threw a pale light that brought out 
strange, mysterious shadows. 

The men, now throwing themselves flat, now crawling 
under barbed wire entanglements, stooping and dodg- 

97 



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© Committee on Public Information 

A trench sentry 
ing, slowly made their way across the intervening 500 
yards. 

Though the orders were merely to proceed to the 
German lines, the heart of each man was set on locating 
and getting the machine gun. 

The sentry of the gun saw them first, and instantly 
started spitting death in their direction. No further 
orders were necessary. The reasons for secrecy and 
stealth were gone. There was a general alarm within 
the enemy's lines. With a shout the raiders jumped up, 
and from three sides dashed in on the gun, with its 
murderous spray of bullets. 

Some of the men fell, but the gun was captured, and 
with it several prisoners. 

98 



Corporal Tate had vowed that he would be satisfied 
if he brought back one German. His wish was gratified, 
but he was wounded and died three days afterwards. 

In the official bulletin the next day it was said in the 
usual brief military way that a one of our patrols cleaned 
up an enemy machine gun post last night," and brought 
back prisoners. 

But every one of the fourteen men in the patrol was 
named by the colonel of the regiment on account of his 
bravery under conditions that might easily have brought 
death. 

Adapted from New York Globe 



The Navy 

Today you can cross the Atlantic on a troop ship 
bound for France almost as safely as you can cross Lake 
Michigan or the Hudson River. 

The Hun still lurks there, but he is powerless, for our 
navy with its iron-clad battle ships, its long, narrow 
grey destroyers, its bluejackets who know no superiors, 
its officers trained in the greatest naval academy in the 
world, has made the sea safe in spite of German threats. 

The Hun may sink a hundred or two hundred thousand 
tons of allied shipping a month, but he is lost. We are 
building more ships than he sinks, and are destroying 
more submarines than he can build. 

By September 1, 1918, our country had sent over 
1,600,000 overseas and had lost fewer than 300. 

99 



Every week, guarded by our navy, thousands of our 
men land in France. By July, 1919, the United States 
expects to have over 4,000,000 men "over there" ready 
and eager to fight the battle for democracy. 

The other day a great ship, once one of the queens 
of all the iGerman merchant fleet, now an American 
transport ship, slipped into a French harbor. With her 
were thirteen monster ships, ten destroyers, 36,000 
fighting men and 5,000 crew. 

The wireless station had received a cipher message 
giving warning of the approach of the fleet. It had been 
hoped the arrival would be in daylight, with flags flying, 
bands playing and the sun shining as the American 
fighting men got their first glimpse of Europe. But this 
was no dress parade, said the admiral, and there was 
no time for stage effects. 

And so, at midnight, in the rain and darkness, with 
signal lights showing for the first time since they left 
the other side, the huge flotilla moved in a long line of 
lights to the sheltered roadstead. 

There was a stirring scene in the harbor the next 
morning as the big transports unloaded their 36,000 men. 
The sky had cleared and the huge hulls of the trans- 
ports loomed out of the mist, their funnels puffing black 
smoke, their sides camouflaged, and their decks crowded 
with khaki-clad Americans in their broad-brimmed som- 
breros. The destroyers had drawn off and were lying 
bunched ten across. They looked diminutive beside 
the big ships, but their power showed in the glint of 

100 



guns and the long, lean build like a greyhound stretched 
for action. Further back were the French warships. 

All about were innumerable ismall craft, [army and 
navy tugs, lighters, launches and a flotilla of fishing 
craft with their nets hanging to dry like huge sails of 
lace. Back of this water scene stretched the huge 
American warehouses, sprung up like mushrooms until 
the whole front was black with buildings. 

The lighters were long-side. The men were crowding 
the decks ready to go ashore. Eighteen hours later the 
same convoy unloaded, coaled and watered, slipped out 
of the harbor and was on her way home. 

These are never before dreamt of records! Whole 
convoys unloaded, coaled and started home in from 
thirty-six to forty-eight hours after steaming into port! 

The navy, like the genii in the story of Alladin's 
Lamp, is performing miracles, and the story of its 
achievements reads like a fairy tale. 

Our boys, co-operating with the boys of the British 
navy, are not only protecting our troops in their voyage 
across the Atlantic, but they are restoring the freedom 
of the seas by destroying submarines, destroying them 
faster than Germany can build them. 

So hats off to the boys in blue, French, British, 
Italian and American — the big brothers of the dough- 
boys. They are doing a great big bit to help make the 
world safe for democracy. 

From Associated Press and New York Tribune 

101 



Chasing Submarines 

One of the first shots fired by America in the great 
war sunk a German submarine. This event occurred on 
the 142d anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, April 
19, 1917, at 5:32 A. M. The ship whose name will go 
down in history as having fired the first shot at sea 
is the American freighter Mongolia. She was on her 
second voyage through the barred zone. Her captain, 
Emory Eice, had not had his clothes off for five days. 
A big force of lookouts had been kept on duty all the 
time. At 5 :22 in the morning of April 19 the submarine 
was sighted. At 5:24 she was sunk, which shows, as 
Captain Eice relates, that "the whole affair took only 
two minutes." The officers commanding the gunners 
were with him on the bridge, where they had been most 
of the time throughout the voyage, and he is quoted as 
saying in part: 

"There was a haze over the sea at the time. We had 
just taken a sounding, for we were getting near shallow 
water, when the first mate cried: 

" 'There's a submarine off the port bow.' 

"The submarine was close to us, too close, in fact, for 
her purposes, and she was submerging again in order 
to manoeuver in a better position for torpedoing us when 
we sighted her. 

"We saw the periscope go down, and the swirl of 
the water. I quickly ordered the man at the wheel 
to swing the nose of the ship toward the spot where the 
submarine had been seen. 

102 



"We were going at full speed ahead, and two minutes 
after we first sighted the U-boat, it emerged again about 
1,000 yards off. Its intention probably had been to 
catch us broadside on, but when it appeared we had the 
stern gun trained full on it. 

"The lieutenant gave the command and the big gun 
boomed. We saw the periscope shattered and the shell 
and the submarine disappeared . 

"That's about all the story, excepting this: The gun- 
ners had named the guns on board the Mongolia and 
the one which got the submarine was called Theodore 
Roosevelt; so Teddy fired the first gun of the war, 
after all." _, _. _.. _. „ 

From The Literary Digest 



On Board a U. S. Destroyer 

Large numbers of our destroyers have been co-oper- 
ating with the British destroyers in the most efficient 
way since last spring. This is the story of a young 
American seaman who has served for nine months on 
active duty patrolling the submarine zone: • 

"The destroyer to which I belonged, with other 
American boats and several English boats, had the job 
of patrolling a hundred miles or so in the war zone and 
watching for submarines," he began his story. 

"It was early in June that we sank our first sub- 
marine. We had gone out to convoy a certain famous 
liner bearing an American base hospital unit. We were 
300 miles offshore on the port side. For some time 

103 



we had observed what we took to be a wrecked lifeboat 
on the starboard side of the liner. The waters in the 
war zone are rilled with such wreckage and with dead 
and mangled bodies. 

"Suddenly, as we watched the lifeboat, it moved. That 
didn't seem natural, and we sent a shot at it. "We blew 
it to pieces and a periscope appeared; the wreck had 
been camouflaged. The liner was going twenty-three 
knots an hour, and we, making about thirty knots,, 
slipped under her bow and dropped a depth charge, 
which explodes under water. We got the submarine all 
right, for we saw the oil bubbles come to the surface of 
the water. Whenever a submarine is destroyed the 
water is covered with oil, and it often coats the sides 
of the destroyer so thickly that she has to be cleaned 
when she comes into port. 

"A month later we got another submarine. It was 
about 7 o'clock in the evening and only eight or ten 
miles off the coast. Three troopships, carrying six or 
seven thousand Canadians, were coming in, each con- 
voyed by a destroyer. An English patrol boat just 
ahead of us signalled that she saw a periscope, and in 
a minute we saw it too — painted green and white and 
six inches in diameter. It was 200 yards from our 
transport. 'General quarters' sounded — that means 
each man to his station. I took mine at No. 3 gun. We 
turned an angle of 90 degrees and passed directly over 
the submarine and at the same time let go two depth 
charges. 

104 



"I know we got her, because besides the usual oil we 
saw hats floating in the water. Everybody on the trans- 
port went into the lifeboats, which were slung out over 
the sides all ready to drop. The vibration of the depth 
charges was such that the men aboard the transport 
didn't know for a moment whether they'd been torpedoed 
or not. 

"We were almost hit by a torpedo once, and I never 
was so scared in my life* 

"It was one of those awfully foggy afternoons and we 
were tearing through the water, just taking a chance 
that we wouldn't hit anything. First, another destroyer 
almost collided with us. An hour later I was looking 
overside and suddenly I saw a white streak going 
through the water. A lot of us saw it at the same time, 
but we couldn't make a sound. We knew it was a tor- 
pedo, but we had to wait and see if it would hit us or 
not. It missed by ten yards ; the man at the wheel had 
noted it just in time to deflect our course a trifle. 

"The destroyer which had almost run us down got 
that submarine that same night. 

"While on patrol duty we picked up a lot of survivors 
from fishing vessels and other craft, and we had a time 
taking care of those suffering from wounds and expos- 
ure, for of course we had no regular sick bay. Once 
we rescued twenty-two Chinamen floating in a little boat 
150 miles out. On the French coast we picked up ten 
French fishermen, five alive and five dead. They go 
out in small boats, and the submarines amuse them- 

105 



selves by firing at the boats with their deck guns when 
they've nothing else to do. It's just plain murder, of 
course. We had several wireless calls from the mys- 
terious submarine commander who signs himself 'Kelly' 
and sends messages like this: 'Sorry I missed you. 
Better luck next time.' 

"The worst thing we had to endure was the cold," con- 
cluded Burke. "Even in summer we wore fur coats 
and hip-high boots. What did I think about when I saw 
a submarine? The chief thought in every fellow's mind 
is, 'I'm going to get you first, for if I don't you'll get 
me.' Oh, of course I want to go back. The other fel- 
lows are over there, and I just don't feel right here." 

From New York Evening World 




© Committee on Public Information 



A captured German submarine U-boat 



106 



Decorated in Italy 



In a letter to his father, L. H. Davidson of New York, 
who went abroad with the Dartmouth unit before this 
country entered the war, writes of interesting events in 
Italy. 

Italy, Zona di Guerra, July 25. — I have been rather 
neglectful in writing home lately, but feel that this letter 
should set me right, first, because I have been decorated 
with the Italian valor medal (militare al valor), which 
ranks with the American D. S. 0. and between the French 
Medaile Militaire and the Croix de Guerre; and, sec- 
ondly, because I had the honor to be decorated by the 
King of Italy himself. 

The medal was for the work in the Austrian offensive 

last month, the major part of 
which I have written you about. 
The first I heard about being 
decorated was when I came 
back from post the night before 
last. The chief said to get all 
dolled up right away, as we had 
to be at at 6 next morn- 
ing to be decorated. . . . 

There were more than 40,000 
troops drawn up around the 
borders of the field in a big 
circle when we got there. . . . 
The King arrived at 8 o'clock 
amid flourishes of trumpets. 

107 




© Paul Thompson 

General Diaz commands 

Italy's army on the 

Austrian front 



The Allies were represented by British, American, 
French and Japanese generals. There were also several 
United States Congressmen, so yon can see what the 
affair was. 

I was the tenth to be decorated. We were lined np in 
front of the stand. As each man's name was called he 
marched to the platform, did a left turn and saluted the 
King, who shook hands and said a word or two. I sup- 
pose he spoke to me, because all of the other fellows said 
he spoke to them, but for the life of me I can't remember 
what he said or if he even spoke. I felt fifty thousand 
pairs of eyes on me and couldn't remember much of any- 
thing except that the King gave me my medal and I man- 
aged to salute and get off the platform without falling 
down stairs. ... 

There were a number decorated, Carabinieri, Bersa- 
glieri, Arditi and regular infantry. Our colonel received 
the highest decoration the Italian Government can give. 
It was for his wonderful work in keeping the Austrians 
in check the first morning of the attack. 

There was everything known to war in it (the review 
of troops) except the tanks, which are not used down 
here. It was a wonderful sight. The Bersagiieri and 
Alpini with feathered hats, the Arditi, hard as nails, with 
their low cut collars and daggers, the cavalry with gaudy 
lances and wonderful horses which went by at dance 
step. The Bersagiieri cyclist, the most picturesque of 
all, passed in perfect line with a band of buglers playing 
the march of the Bersagiieri. . 

Adapted from New York Sun 

108 



In Flanders Fields 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow 
Between the crosses, row on row, 
That mark our place; and in the sky 
The larks, still bravely singing, fly 
Scarce heard amid the guns below. 

We are the dead. Short days ago 
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 
Loved and were loved, and now we lie 
In Flanders fields. 

Take up our quarrel with the foe : 
To you from falling hands we throw 
The torch ; be yours to hold it high. 
If ye break faith with us who die 
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 
In Flanders fields. 

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae. 



America's Answer 

Rest ye in peace, ye Flanders dead ; 
The fight that ye so bravely led 
We've taken up. And we will keep 
True faith with you who are asleep. 
With each a cross to mark his bed, 
Where once his own life blood ran red. 
So let your rest be sweet and deep 
In Flanders fields. 

Fear not that ye have died for naught. 
The torch ye threw to us we caught. 
Ten million hands will hold it high, 
And Freedom's right shall never die ! 
We've learned the lesson that ye taught 
In Flanders fields. 

— R. W. Lillard. 

109 



Deceiving the Enemy by Camouflage 
Many birds and animals are able to avoid their 
enemies or to approach their prey without being dis- 
covered through what is known as protective coloring. 
Quail, woodcock and grouse are the exact color of the 
grass in which they live. 




© Committee on Public Information 

A camouflaged road in France 

Even insects protect themselves by pretending. 
Some, when in danger, look like sticks, leaves and other 
inanimate objects. Others find safety in imitating in- 
sects that are known to birds as poisonous, and hence 
avoided. 

The chameleon is a lightning change pretender. He 
can alter his color at will from blue or green to yellow, 
brown or mottled. 

In this war we have invented almost as many new 
methods of deceiving the enemy by the use of colors 
as the birds, animals and insects have been using for 

110 



ages. It was the French who started, and they called 
it camouflage. 

Camouflaging is the art of deceiving, of making 
something appear quite different from what it really is. 
It not only protects the individual soldier and imple- 
ments of war, but it screens the movement of entire 
armies, and helps to send our ships in safety across 
the sea. 

Oil the battle fields all guns, huts, signal stations, 
everything in fact, is camouflaged. 

Men camouflage themselves so that they look like 
trunks of trees, stones, etc., when it is necessary for 
them to patrol or to steal across No Man's Land. 




iSmfe 



Mgf 









© Committee on Public Information 

A camouflaged soldier meant 
to lie hidden in the grass 

111 



The smoke screen camouflage is another use of the 
same idea. No form whatever can be made out; there 
is nothing but a great cloud of smoke. 

Our people were amused when told that President 
Wilson was deceived by clever camouflage of men and 
cannon at Washington until soldiers stepped out to 
salute him from what he thought was only a bank of 
shrubs. But experts in the art of making camouflage 
and in the other important art of detecting camouflage 
are also often fooled by successful deceptive coloring. 

At the second battle of the Marne two American 
Indians, when attacked by a company of Germans, 
jumped into the river and dived under water. The 
Germans waited for them to come up, but though they 
waited long the Indians did not reappear. The Ger- 
mans concluded they had been drowned and went on; 
however, they were not drowned. The Indians had 
grabbed handsful of clay from the bottom of the river 
and camouflaged their faces and shoulders so that when 
they came up they looked like floating debris, so had 
escaped observation! 

It is a case of diamond cut diamond all the time in 
the contest between the camouflage expert and the 
trained observer. 

A heavy gun was converted into a woodland growth 
and a grove of brushwood was erected about it. Th 
gunners used extreme care in approaching it, so that 
no tracks appeared in its vicinity. Not far away a 
"naked" gun was plainly to be seen, with well-worn 

112 



tracks leading up to it. As an airplane appeared the 
naked gun flashed. 

Was the naked gun a dummy meant to divert the 
observers' attention from some nearby deadly camouflage 
gun? Or was the exposed gun the deadly gun, left 
exposed to fool the observer? These questions the 
aviator must decide in an instant because he carries but 
a few bombs and must not waste them. 

In these days all German batteries are carefully 
camouflaged, but the sight of a man disappearing into 
what looks exactly like a patch of grass gives the aerial 
detective an important clew — which may lead eventually 
to the destruction of several of the enemy's guns. 

Troops hiding in woods are well concealed from an 
airplane observer so long as they are motionless. But 
let one man move and detection of the whole party may 
follow. 

It is the airplane that has made camouflaging so 
necessary on land. The air men are called the eyes of 
the army. All day they fly around, often far behind the 
enemy's lines, observing, sketching, and photographing, 
their keen eyes seeing everything. The observer 
with a good glass and constant practice acquires almost 
a special sense. He cultivates the trick of seeing with 
the tail of his eye things which direct gaze misses. 

How to make it hard for German submarines to see 
our boats at sea became an all important question. In 
many weird ways the problem was solved. It is here 
that the two great systems of camouflage — "low Hvisi- 

113 



bility camouflage" and "dazzle camouflage" — are seen in 
most striking contrast. 

Low visibility camouflage makes the ship look like 
the sky and the water. It is low visibility camouflage 
which the chameleon uses when it changes its color to 
look like the leaf or bark it is on. It is for the same 
low visibility that we use khaki clothing, which cannot 
be seen from the distance so soon as blue or red. 

Dazzle camouflage aims to dazzle or confuse. There 
is no attempt to imitate either sky or sea or any other 
recognizable thing. Zig-zag lines of every color make 
the vessel seem much nearer or much farther, much 
smaller or much larger than it really is. The submarine 
cannot tell what range to use when shooting and is not 
sure whether it is shooting at the front, back or middle 
of a boat. 

The most interesting camouflage is probably the 
marine camouflage. 

An expert camouflage artist and a naval officer were 
gazing at the Hudson River from the top floor of a 
New York apartment house. Suddenly the officer 
called attention to two boats moving slowly down the 
river. They watched for a while and then decided that 
a United States destroyer was convoying a submarine. 
Further watching, however, showed them their error. 
The destroyer was real enough, but the submarine was 
only a painted submarine done in jet black on the battle 
grey side of the destroyer. 

Adapted from New York Globe, and Memphis Commercial Appeal 

114 



A Raid for Prisoners 

Word had been received from headquarters that a 
barrage was to be put over from 3 :45 to 4 :05 a. m., and 
that immediately following a raiding party was to cross 
No Man's Land, establish contact with the enemy, and 
bring back prisoners. 

We were sitting in the captain's dugout behind the 
first-line trenches. The captain was writing. It was 
past two o'clock when he put away his reports and we 
started for the trenches. 

The trail from the dugout, easy to follow by day, had 
become mysterious by night, a maze of black shadows, 
but the captain led the way with sure and steady feet. 

At the entrance to the trenches we were stopped by 
the sentry. 

"Halt! Who goes?" 

"Friend." 

"What's the password?" 

"Denver," whispered the captain. 

"Pass," said the sentry. 

The trenches were full of muffled flat shadows, some 
standing, some kneeling on the fire step, steady-eyed, 
tense-faced men, watching and waiting. Now and then 
a rifle lengthened itself over the parapet. There was a 
burst of fire, followed by another and another, and the 
watch was resumed. 

A patrol of six men passed. We followed them to a 
place in the trenches where steps had been scooped. 

115 



Two by two the men went over into No Man's Land, 
preparatory for the night's business. 

It was just 3:30 when we reached the cave where the 
telephone reports for the artillery were to come in. Our 
guns were silent, but everything was ready. 

At 3:45, stop-watch time, the barrage began. Earth 
and heaven shook with our guns. From somewhere, 
from everywhere, the monsters reared their heads 
slowly, belched their projectiles at the unoffending stars 
and slid back, a little nervously, into position. 

The 75's had delivered their salute not once but many 
times. Grenades were whistling over us. Trench mor- 
tars were sending winged messengers, as fast as they 
were fed. 

We were laying down a box barrage. Our guns were 
drawing two parallel lines, one in each flank of the 
German trenches we were to raid, each line a living wall 
of steel through which nothing could pass. Third and 




©Harris & Ewlng — Paul Thompson 

A smoke barrage 
116 



fourth lines paralleled also, and at right angles with the 
first, were preventing the enemy bringing up help from 
the rear. 

"Company X reports battery on German left has 
ceased firing. ,, 

This was the first message over the wire a few minutes 
after our outburst. 

"Company Q reports guns silenced in German cen- 
ter." 

"Company Z reports one German gun still active on 
German right." 

One by one the reports were relayed to the artillery. 
Underground we could see nothing. 

"Company X reports all guns silenced on its front." 

"Company Z reports one German gun still firing." 

"We'll get that gun in another minute, or" . The 

captain could not finish amidst the noise. So many 
guns were now firing that sounds could not be distin- 
guished. All was one vast roar. 

"Let us go to an observation post," said the captain. 

We stepped out. Passing shells, bursts of flame 
springing up on all parts of the line, and rockets rising 
made a quivering, unearthly light that was not like the 
light of sun, moon or s'tars. 

Ground, sky and air were bellowing as the barrage 
kept on. 

In the front line the raiding party was waiting. 
There was no excitement, little nervousness. If any one 
of them was afraid he refused to betray it. If any 

117 



one of them was nervous at the prospect before him he 
hid his nervousness splendidly. 

"I'm going to lose my old puttees tonight, so I can 
draw a good pair tomorrow," we heard one of the men 
say. 

The others laughed quietly. 

We could talk here because we were further from our 
own guns, and the boche was almost silent. 
At 4:05 our men went over the top. 

From the observation post we did not see them for a 
while, but soon moving shapes appeared in No Man's 
Land, rolling toward the line of our barrage. A few 
enemy shells fell into the field, but our men moved on 
without quickening pace. 

We lost sight of them. Minutes passed. Our fire 
continued, and we could hear the German fire increas- 
ing. These were anxious minutes for the officers and 
men in our lines. But they passed quickly. 

At 4:30 our men began coming back. The order, 
"Every man for himself!" had been given. Some were 
running. Some were walking, running, crouching, 
avoiding shell holes, and dodging shells. In a few 
minutes all were back. 

They brought visitors with them, two tattered and 
forlorn German prisoners, scratched, bleeding and 
frightened, ready to give all the information we needed 
in return for a bite to eat and a kindly cigarette, which 
were offered. Our raid had been a complete success. 

118 



A battered mortar, some rifles, grenades and other 
souvenirs were brought back. 

"Take the prisoners to headquarters for examina- 
tion," the lieutenant who had 'gone over' now orders. 
"Any of our men hurt?" 

"Bloodied up a bit by the wire. Nothing else." 

"Had my puttees torn off of me," a private is com- 
plaining. "Got to have a new pair tomorrow." 

The raiders and their souvenirs move into the open 
behind the trenches and away to headquarters, while 
our guns continue a low but triumphal rumble. Fritz, 
too, is continuing his fire. His rockets grow numerous 
again. 

"Let's call it a night," says a lieutenant. 

The captain decides to stay up. "Fritz might try a 
little strafe before daylight," he says. 

But no strafe comes. The morning dawns red and 
serene and the captain prepares to sleep by removing 
his gas mask from his shoulders, his boots and his coat. 

Adapted from New York Tribune 

Interviewing Peanuts, Oldest Veteran 

Everybody in this outfit wears a gold stripe on his 
left arm, and a goodly number boast campaign badges 
in addition. So it occurred to an energetic correspond- 
ent attached to the battalion to request an interview 
with the organization's oldest veteran. 

"Sure," agreed the major, "but there are certain diffi- 
culties. He's hard to interview." 

119 



"Aw, I can make him talk," declared the reporter. 
"Just lead me to him." 

The major got up and led the way out into the court- 
yard and around to the stables. 

"Here he is," said the officer, grinning. He had 
stopped in front of an aged mule. "His name is Pea- 
nuts. He has served in Cuba, the Philippines, China, 
at Vera Cruz, on the Border, and in France. Go to it, 
young man." 

But all that Peanuts would say for publication was 
He-haw! He-haw! He-haw! meaning Hurray for the 
red , white, anil blue! 

Peanuts, as the reporter then learned, is a regular 
army mule, and knows the respect due a regular army 
mule. 

One time he was sick, very sick, and as the army 
veterinary was away from the post, it was necessary to 
call in a civilian surgeon. 

As the doctor in mufti approached him Peanuts eyed 
him with great disapproval. He stretched his neck, 
straightened his legs, and as the civilian surgeon came 
within range, he turned loose both hind legs, coming 
within a fraction of an inch of making a civilian cas- 
ualty. The soldiers who observed this conduct advised 
the doctor to put on a uniform. He did so. When he 
returned thus attired he was flanked on one side by a 
soldier beating a drum, and on the other by one bearing 
a flag. Peanuts viewed the tableau with approval and 
took his pills. 

From The Stars and Stripes and New York Tribune 

120 



Birds in No Man's Land 
• 

"No Man's Land" holds no terrors for the feathered 
tribe. Birds build their nests in the corners of the wire 
entanglements, and sing merrily in the midst of the 
deafening cannonades. In fact, neither the strafing 
of the Hun nor the replies of the Allies' guns seem to 
have any effect on the wild life of the war-stricken 
country. 

One night when both German and British guns were 
booming a crested lark sang sweetly as if anticipating 
the dawn, while a blackcap in the withered saplings that 
screened our gun-pit trilled forth his lay, punctuated by 
the boom of the guns beneath him. The effect was very 
quaint, as during each pause in the gun-fire the black- 
cap's song echoed sweetly over the shell-riven earth. 

A German shell, better aimed than usual, scored a 
direct hit upon our gun, but the din of the explosion 
apparently did not trouble the bird, for he only fluttered 
away to the next sapling and continued his song. 

At another time, when billeted in a chateau surrounded 
by extensive grounds and an extremely green and smelly 
moat, I listened to a nightingale, thrush, and blackbird 
piping for all they were worth, while not a hundred yards 
away the German shells were pounding to atoms some 
sheds and a barn. 

Even in the trenches the birds do not appear to 
trouble about the sounds of war, and the wire entangle- 
ments of No Man's Land are a happy hunting-ground, 
and from a bird's point of view an ideal place for nest- 

121 



building. Last year I found a blackbird's nest in a 
tangled corner, while at another corner a kestrel would 
perch and preen her feathers, utterly regardless of the 
flying bullets and shells. 

One bird manoeuver is rather surprising. A company 
of small birds — sparrows, chaffinches, and other mem- 
bers of the same family — may be feeding quietly in the 
road or around a barn, when suddenly they will fly up 
and scatter at right angles. For a second or two there is 
nothing to be heard, then the sound of a shell comes 
faintly. 

Now, what instinct has taught the birds to disperse 
and fly in this way from the direct path of a shell! 

In the early days of the war they were not so wily, 
or perhaps their hearing was not so acute, for sparrows 
would remain in the ivy covering a house until the shell 
actually exploded, when they would whirl out and upward 
like so many pieces of shrapnel. 

Other birds do not appear to have learned to do this, 
for in an orchard that the Germans were shelling the 
young swallows remained perched on the branches until 
the trees fell. Then they flew up and whirled about, 
actually hawking for insects over the ruins of their 
former roosting place. Yet the parent swallows were 
most anxious over the welfare of their young brood, and 
kept them together for a long time after they had left 
the nest. It is a wonder that they have not learned the 
danger that lies in the whine of an oncoming shell. 

From London Spectator, quoted in The Literary Digest 

122 



A Matter of Tune 

Things had been happening. Divisions were moving. 
There had been, or there was going to be, a stunt. 

A battalion inarched over the hill and sat down by 
the road. They had left the trenches three days' 
march to the north and had come to a new country. The 
officers pulled their maps out; a mild breeze fluttered 
them; yesterday had been winter and today was spring, 
but spring in a desolation so complete and far-reaching 
that you only knew of it by that little wind. 

It was early March by the calendar, but the wind was 
blowing out of the gates of April. A platoon commander 
feeling that mild wind blowing forgot his map and began 
to whistle a tune that suddenly came to him out of the 
past with the wind. Out of the past it blew, and out of 
the South, a merry spring tune of a Southern people. 
Perhaps only one of those that noticed the tune had ever 
heard it before. An officer sitting near had heard it 
sung ; it reminded him of a holiday long ago in the South. 

"Where did you hear that tune?" he asked the platoon 
commander. 

"Oh, a long way from here," the platoon commander 
said. ; 

He did not remember quite where it was he had heard 
it, but he remembered a sunny day in France and a hill 
all dark with pine woods and a man coming down at 
evening out of the woods, down the slope to the village 
singing this song. Between the village and the slope 

123 




124 



there were orchards all in blossom, so that he came with 
his song for hundreds of yards through orchards. 

"A long way from here," he repeated. 

For a while then they sat silent. 

"It mightn't have been so very far from here," said 
the platoon commander. "It was in France. But it was 
a lovely part of France, all woods and orchards. Noth- 
ing like this, thank God !" 

And he glanced with a tired look at the unutterable 
desolation. 

"Where was it?" said the other. 

"In Picardy," he said. 

"Aren't we in Picardy now?" asked his friend. 

"Are we V ' he replied. 

"I don't know. The maps don't call it Picardy." 

"It was a fine place, anyway," the platoon commander 
said. "There seemed always to be a wonderful light 
on the hills. A kind of short grass grew on them and 
it shone in the sun at evening. There were black woods 
above it. A man used to come out of them singing at 
evening." 

He looked wearily round at the brown desolation of 
weeds. As far as the two officers could see there was 
nothing but brown weeds and bits of brown barbed wire. 
He turned from the desolate scene back to his remi- 
niscences. 

"He came singing through the orchards into the vil- 
lage," he said. "A quaint old place with queer gables, 
called Ville-en-Bois." 

125 



"Do you know where we are?" asked the other. 

"No," said the platoon commander. 

"I thought not,' he said. "Hadn't you better take a 
look at the map?" 

"I suppose so," said the platoon commander, and he 
smoothed out his map and wearily got to the business 
of finding out where he was. 

"Can it be possible?" he said. "Ville-en-Bois!" 

From New York Tribune, by Lord Dunsany (Captain) 



To France 

What is the gift we have given thee, Sister? 

What is the trust we have laid in thy hand? 
Hearts of our bravest, our best, and our dearest, 

Blood of our blood, we have sown in thy land. 

What for all time will the harvest be, Sister? 

What will spring up from the seed that is sown? 
Freedom and peace and goodwill among Nations, 

Love that will bind us with love all our own. 



— Frederick George Scott. 
In The Battle Silences, Contablc & Company 



126 



A Prisoner Taken in the Air 

Among the many interesting and exciting stories that 
have come from what was the St. Mihiel salient is one 
which, so far as can be recalled, is without a precedent — 
an entirely new revelation as to the possibilities of aerial 
warfare. 

It seems that Captain Charles Biddle — of Philadelphia, 
naturally — while flying at a great height encountered and 
fought with a German flier. There was nothing new or 
remarkable in that, of course, nor was it strange that at 
the first exchange of bullets the German was wounded 
and his airplane damaged. 

But the 'German's wound was not serious and his 
machine was not so much injured as to be out of control. 

That being the situation, Captain Biddle, had he fol- 
lowed the usual procedure, would have finished of! his 
helpless foe and sent him crashing to earth. 

Instead, whether from disinclination for the perform- 
ance, if it could be avoided, of a duty distinctly unpleas- 
ant, or because he aspired to the glory of doing what 
no other aviator had ever done, the Captain in some way 
signaled that the German should consider himself a 
prisoner and should guide his machine to a landing within 
the American lines. The alternative to obedience was 
death, and the German aviator obeyed. 

Now, it has not been expected that aviators should 
bring back trophies of this kind. Aerial battles have 
always been of the ultimate decisiveness except when 

127 



one or the other combatant, losing hope of victory, suc- 
ceeded in making his escape. 

Probably Captain Biddle will not have many imitators, 
and he may not himself ever have again just the com- 
bination of circumstances and conditions that made his 
achievement possible. But he did bring home a prisoner 
from the clouds ! 

Some other day, perhaps, he or another aviator will 
rescue a friend or foe from a falling plane before it and 
he reach the ground. 

That is impossible, indeed, but it is the aviator's busi- 
ness to do the impossible, and they accomplish it so often 
that no real surprise can be felt at anything they do. — 

Editorial from New York Times 



Bill and Dick, Ambulance Heroes 

When Dick made his first journey to the communica- 
tion trenches, he had much ado to keep himself from 
bolting. A city horse, he thought no noise could shake 
his nerves. But when the shrapnel flew screaming over- 
head, he shied violently ; then stopped dead in his tracks, 
trembling in every limb. Not until his new master, Bill, 
had hopped down from his seat and given him a reas- 
suring thump on the shoulder, did he find the heart to 
resume his road. 

They had not gone far, when something huge and hor- 
rible pitched with a whizz and a bang just fifty yards 

128 



iii front of them, sending up a small fountain of earth, 
stones and smoke. Dick shivered, but his master only 
shouted: "Giddap!" 

So on he ploughed over the reeking road. When they 
got home after a six-hour journey, the perspiration was 
pouring off his flanks, though the day was bitterly cold. 
What an old, miserable, horror-stricken animal he felt! 
He just knew he could not stand this job. 

But presently there came his master, calling him 
"old fire-eater." He rubbed Dick down. He patted and 
petted him. He gave him water and good food and a 
clean stable to sleep in. Dick decided that after all he 
could stay. 

The next day it rained, and the journey was longer. 
The noise and smoke still made Dick uneasy, but he 
did not shy. What he minded now was the long stand- 
ing in a spot so exposed to the wet that his hoofs sank 
painfully into the slimy, thick ooze. He ached with 
misery. He wanted to run away, but there was his 
master with some other men, emptying the cart behind 
him, and stopping every now and then to pat him cheer- 
ily on the side. No, a self-respecting horse could not 
desert such a master ! 

The worst of all came a few weeks later. It was a 
pleasant day, with a slight wind. Dick was feeling 
almost happy, when suddenly he saw a yellowish cloud 
rise slowly from the earth and move steadily and surely 
toward him. A strange smell struck his nostrils. He 
sniffed. 

129 



Then his master shouted, "Gas!" and clapped a suf- 
focating bag right over Dick's head. 

Dick struggled and strangled. He plunged and kicked 
the cart. But Bill only patted him. He had a funny 
hood on too. "Steady, old chap!" Dick could feel Bill 
saying, so he stood steady until they took the thing off. 



So it went for weeks, and then for months. Bill and 
Dick trudged over the torn roads, always cheerily, with 
only a side glance for the death looking over their 
shoulder. They were lucky, these two. No bullets or 
high explosives tore them. No liquid fire burned them. 
No shrapnel shot them to pieces. But all the same, the 
strain was beginning to tell. 

There came times when Bill's hands pulled so hard 
on the reins that Dick thought they would surely tear 
his mouth off. There were times when he jerked them 
so that any but a loving animal would have been driven 
mad with irritation. Once, indeed, he went so far as 
to hit Dick for no cause. Then he cursed himself. Later 
he almost cried. But never did he forget to clean out 
those muddy hoofs which, left dirty, wctuld have brought 
eczema. Never did he forget to wash off the sweating 
flanks and to rub down that much-chafed back. 

So Dick paid no attention to the irritation. After all, 
didn't he understand? Weren't there times when he 
himself wanted to bite the animal in the next box or 
to kick the boards down for no reason whatsoever? 

130 



What was the matter with them both, though? That 
was what he wanted to know. He found out one morn- 
ing, when the doctor met them on their road. 

"Bill," said he, addressing Dick's master, "I've de- 
cided that only 'blighty' will cure you. Nothing like a 
peep in home to take the strain off the nerves. I hope 
they keep you there. You've been long enough out here." 

His master going! Dick craned his neck round, and 
managed to meet Bill's eye. They looked at one an- 
other. Then the master scratched his head. 

"Thank ye, sir, thank ye," said he to the doctor. "But 
this 'ere 'orse now — what abowt 'im? 'E and I've ben 
'ere together right from the start. Couldn't 'e be dis- 
charged, too?" 

The doctor laughed. 

"I'm afraid not," he said. 

"Well, then, sir, if you wouldn't mind," replied Bill, 
"I'll think I'll wait a bit. You see we're used to being 
together, me and Dick. We'd rather be together to the 
finish." 

"Just as you like," said the doctor. 

"Giddap!" said Bill. 

And so it happens that these two still trudge the torn 
French roads. 



There can be no peace obtained by any kind 
of bargain or compromise with the govern- 
ments of the Central Empires. — Our Presi- 
dent 



131 



Baylies of the Air Service 

Somebody once asked Lieutenant Baylies if lie was 
ever afraid when he was flying. 

"Oh, no," said he, "it's too exciting. One hasn't time 
to be afraid. You take great chances, and some day the 
boche may get you, but it's a good death and a quick 
one." 

Baylies, the American ace, took his last chance in 
June, 1918. He had joined the French air service just a 
year before, after serving two years with the French 
Red Cross in Macedonia. By October, 1917, he had be- 
come a member of the famous Stork Escadrille. 

In March Baylies had a narrow escape. While pa- 
trolling he had trouble with his engine, and was forced 
to make a landing in No Man's Land. He repaired his 
machinery with bullets and shells crashing all about him, 
and sailed triumphantly off into the troubled air before 
the German snipers managed to make a good shot. 

Two months later he had gained six palms for his 
War Cross, and had become a member of the Legion of 
Honor. 

On June 17, Baylies and two companions left the air- 
drome to patrol the lines. Baylies was leading, and flew 
quite far in advance. It was the first time he had been 
out in over a month, as he had been waiting for a new 
machine. Since his last flight the French army had been 
forced to retreat and the line was considerably further 
south than it had been. Baylies may not have realized 
this. When he flew over the spot where the French line 

132 



used to be, four other planes were suddenly visible, 
dodging in and out of the clouds high above him. Bay- 
lies probably thought they were British, as the boche 
does not like to fly so high. He shot up to them with- 
out waiting for his friends. 

But he must have realized his mistake as he came 
nearer the group, for he was seen suddenly to leap up- 
ward and then to swing round over his right wings 
toward the enemy. Just as he did this a fourth plane 
shot down from the bank of clouds behind him. No 
shots were seen or heard but smoke began to pour from 
Baylies' machine, and it disappeared down through the 
filmy curtain of the clouds in a long dive. 

His friends at once gave chase, but the boche escaped. 
No trace of Baylies could be found. He had fallen be- 
hind the German lines. His loss, according to the com- 
manding officer, was one of the greatest the Escadrille 
had experienced. Many of his friends hoped that he 
had made a safe landing and was being held a prisoner 
of war by the Germans. 

Just after dawn one morning a little bag attached to 
a streamer fell from the air in the Stork Airdrome. It 
contained a short message from the enemy: 

"Baylies was killed in action. Buried with military 
honors/' 



All international agreements and treaties of 
every kind must be made known in their 
entirety to the rest of the world. — Our Presi- 
dent 



133 



Night Raiders of the Air 

We arrived at a great British airdrome just as the 
evening shades were falling and the mechanics were 
making their final inspection of the hnge homhing 
machines which were soon to wheel their way across the 
fighting lines with their freight of explosives. 

The night fliers were to go out as soon as darkness 
had settled and we found them all in the mess hall over 
their early dinners. 

Twelve machines were to engage in the raid in hand, 
which meant that twenty-four of these clean-cut hoys 
would soon he risking their lives over the inhospitable 
zone where the Germans watch and wait for the appear- 
ance of enemy aircraft. 

We joined them at mess and listened to their conver- 
sation. It gave one a sensation of witnessing a drama 
which could have no basis in fact, to look into their youth- 
ful faces with the realization that within a short space 









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© Underwood & Underwood 

A group of Canadian fliers 
134 



they might all be called upon to pay the great price in 
defense of king and country. 

They were not discussing the raid. In fact, they 
seemed to be avoiding it. Their talk was largely made 
up of nonsense and chaff, and it seemed at moments 
that there was just a suspicion of "nerves" in their out- 
bursts of laughter. 

From time to time some one of them would fall into 
silence and thoughtfulness, only to be recalled from his 
reverie by the quip of a comrade. They watched one 
another like brothers. 

A siren began its uncanny wailing somewhere outside, 
and a silence fell over the hall. It was the "call to arms." 
One by one twenty-four men separated themselves from 
their comrades and stole quietly from the room. They 
said nothing; nothing was said to them; but scores of 
friendly, anxious eyes looked "bonne chance." 

It was dark. A pale crescent moon struggled bravely 
but ineffectively to clear away the gloom below. 
Strange, shadowy figures were flitting noiselessly about 
the grounds, and against the skyline could be seen the 
blots which represented the great machines that stood 
waiting for their pilots and observers. 

Off toward the east the sky quivered and glowed fit- 
fully with the crimson flashes from myriad guns, while 
the shrapnel hurled vicious flashes all along the line. It 
was toward these ominous beacons that the flight was 
going. 

There was no delay. Time was valuable, for there 
were signs that mists might come at any time. 

135 



Within five minutes the throbbing of a powerful engine 
began, a machine gun barked as the observer tested the 
weapon, and then the plane glided swiftly away across 
the field and swept into the air, its little signal lights 
gleaming like stars. 

Another followed, and another, until the twelve had 
all embarked on their perilous voyage, whose ending no 
one could prophesy. 

Gradually the blinking eyes of the planes disappeared, 
and we stood and counted the minutes as we strained 
our eyes toward the battle line which the flight wonild 
cross. Suddenly a stream of balls of fire began to mount 
high into the air over the trenches. The airmen had 
reached the land of hate, and their punishment had 
begun in earnest. 

The deluge continued, and the shrapnel flashes came 
in ever-increasing numbers. German searchlights went 
peering through the clouds, and we learned later that 
one ray rested squarely on a British plane. It was a 
heart-breaking moment for the pilot and observer. Their 
chances were small, but the light moved on and upward, 
and the plane was again enveloped in darkness. 

All the planes but one were across the line at last. The 
one machine came wheeling back, flashing its personal 
signal as it felt its way toward home. A signal from 
the ground answered and the plane circled slowly down 
and came bobbing across the field. Engine trouble had 
forced a return, but there had been no accident. 

136 



It neared the hour for the other planes to be coming 
back. The squadron commander was pacing up and 
down the field like a caged tiger. His nerves were 
strained almost to the breaking point, and he made no 
effort to conceal it. His boys, the lads whom he loved 
like a brother, were out there over the German guns. 
He himself had spent many bitter days and nights in a 
fighting plane, and he knew what an ordeal "the flight" 
was going through at the moment. 

And so he stamped about unhappily, with his peering 
eyes always on the eastern horizon, watching for the 
twin stars which would herald the return of at least one 
of the wanderers. 

Finally, a set of lights appeared and swung swiftly 

towards the west. "Dash, dot, dash, dash " went 

the code. 

"It's Brown and Little," sighed the commander, and 
he was off posthaste toward the landing place. The 
machine circled and perched. 

"That you, Brown?" the commander demanded, 
anxiously. "Everything all right?" 

He didn't ask whether they had reached their objective 
or whether they had dropped their bombs. Were his 
boys all right ! 

"Brown and Little are all right, sir," came the reply. 

Ten times more the same thing happened, the planes 
sometimes arriving in groups. One pilot and his ob- 
server were still out. We waited a long time, and they 
did not appear. The commander took himself off to be 

137 



alone, and the other officers whispered quietly among 
themselves. There was tragedy in the air. Two of the 
finest men in the service were still unaccounted for. 

Meanwhile the pilot and observer were struggling to 
win a hundred-to-one chance against them, with death as 
the penalty for failure. Out over the German lines their 
engine went dead, while they were at a height of per- 
haps 4,000 feet. They dropped 1,000 feet, and then the 
pilot got his engine working again spasmodically. Up 
they crawled to their former altitude, with their nose 
toward home, and then the engine gave a final gasp 
and died. 

All the probabilities were that they would crash and 
be smashed to pieces. There was only one thing which 
could possibly prevent it, and that was an iron nerve 
in the pilot's box. He cooly started to coast westward. 
On he came until his signal lights showed clearly to the 
watchers in the airdrome. It was like the flight of a 
phantom machine, with its soundless engine. The pilot 
got near the airdrome and then hesitated. He was lost 
and was coming down rapidly. He signalled wildly and 
a score of answering lights flashed back. He swerved 
and came swooping down into the airdrome, saved by a 
few yards. 

The men were all back, and we went to the com- 
mander's office to hear them give their reports. They 
entered in twos and threes, their helmets pushed back, 
but still wearing their bulky garments that made them 
look like arctic explorers, or "teddy bears." But what a 

138 



change in their demeanor! They were no longer the 
laughing, jesting crowd of two hours before. They were 
pale and haggard, and their eyes were strained and bril- 
liant. No need for them to say what they had been 
through. Their faces told the story. 

One by one they told briefly what they had done. They 
had, or they had not, reached their objective. The Hun 
hate! Very bad, indeed, but not a subject for discus- 
sion. Their reports were taken, and they moved quietly 
away. They wanted to be alone. 

From Associated Press dispatch 

Dogs in Khaki 

The War Office requires "a large supply" of collies, 
lurchers, sheep-dogs, retrievers, Airdales, mastiffs, New- 
foundlands and other breeds of large dogs to be trained 
for service at the front. 

When the dogs get "into khaki" the active and fast 
running kinds will be used as messengers and the others 
as watchers along the British battle line in France. 

As everybody who has followed the war news knows, 
the "dogs of war" used by the British and French armies 
have proved invaluable, particularly as messengers. In 
making their appeal to the public for more of these four- 
footed soldiers to be educated at the War Dogs' Training 
School, somewhere in England, the military authorities 
permit some of the more recent and striking perform- 
ances of the canines that are now being employed by 
the British army to be told of for the first time. 

139 



The messenger dogs are used in place of men, and 
are called to work over the fighting zone, where men as 
messengers would he in constant danger from enemy 
fire. Their value lies, not merely in saving the lives of 
men, but in carrying messages much more swiftly than 
men could do over the same ground, and with less risk 
of the loss of the message by the death or injury of the 
messenger. 

A dog can creep or run in almost complete safety where 
a man would be hit, and the lives of many men in the 
firing line may be saved by a message carried by a dog 
to a point two or three miles behind. 

In one instance, last year, where the Germans launched 
an attack, messages of great importance were carried by 
dogs, which had to swim across a stretch of water to 
reach the headquarters with which it was necessary to 
communicate. On another occasion, in which the Black 
Watch was concerned, a cream colored lurcher, known 
as Creamy, carried a map showing a new line which had 
been established, as well as an important message, and 
carried it in twenty-five minutes, where a man would 
have taken three hours — if he had got through. 

Creamy was under heavy shell fire during his journey, 
but came through unhurt, as most of the messenger dogs 
usually do. The percentage of dogs lost is small, and 
after a year's work Creamy is still "doing his bit." 

Occasionally there is a loss to be recorded. Some time 
ago one of the dog messengers reached his headquarters 
with the lower part of his jaw shattered. He delivered 

140 



his packet, but was so severely wounded that he had to 
be destroyed. In similar circumstances a man would 
no doubt have won his medal, or the Victoria Cross. 

Another hero — Little Jim, a cross-bred retriever — is 
reported to have "rendered excellent service." He car- 
ried important dispatches on one occasion in Flanders, 
and covered two and a half miles in a quarter of an hour 
under heavy shell fire. While in the trenches Little Jim 
gave first notice of a German gas attack. He was at 
once released, and arrived at his destination three-quar- 
ters of an hour before a message which was sent by 
"wire." 




©Committee on Public Information 

American army dogs 
141 



It is recorded of a sheep-dog, named Tweed, that he 
"has never made a single mistake," and that day or night 
he is "as sure as a clock." 

Another dog, Trick, a collie, on the same occasion, did 
the distance in a quarter of an hour. Trick is a pretty, 
tri-colored collie, with a white breast. 



^^iSi'Srtti 









■ «.fc#»K « 




MPIP$Rf 



© Paul Thompson 

A dog being trained to find a wounded soldier 

These war dogs have not only to go through rifle and 
machine-gun fire, as well as shell fire, but have to find 
their way through the maze of craters and broken wire 
which covers the fighting area. They rarely go wrong. 
This is no doubt due to the training which they receive 
at the War Dogs* Training School. Their education is 
most thorough. It is done without a whip — there is not 
a single whip in the school — and the greatest care has 
to be taken that they shall not receive a shock at the 
beginning. 

They are first accustomed to hearing a rifle fired, and 
the firing is gradually brought closer, until they will 

142 



"stand easy" while a squad of men fire immediately over 
their heads. They are introduced in turn to bombs and 
guns of all sizes, up to the great 15-inch. They are taken 
through smoke and through water, through barbed wire 
entanglements, and every imaginable kind of obstruc- 
tion. Like good soldiers, they become used to anything, 
and go through anything at the end of their course with- 
out turning a hair. 

They learn jumping and swimming and thoroughly 
enjoy cross-country races, in which they have to leap 
hurdles, crawl through wire, or jump or swim dikes. 
No dog is sent to the front unless he is able to carry a 
message for three miles, and some have done five-mile 
runs before going to France. One dog at the front is 
recorded as having carried a message eight miles in a 
minute over the hour. Another has done five miles in 
half an hour, and a third, three miles and three-quarters 
in twenty minutes. Of one dog messenger it was re- 
ported that he could be "sent anywhere within a radius 
of four miles." As a rule, the trained dog can cover 
about a mile and a quarter in five minutes. 

To make a good messenger a dog must be "sensible" 
and a good jumper. Dogs of breeds smaller than men- 
tioned are of no use. One of the strong points of the 
dog as messenger is that neither darkness nor fog stops 
him. Once properly trained, the dog can be trusted to 
find his way "home" as long as he is able to move. 

Besides acting as dispatch carriers, dogs are trained 
to serve the Red Cross, do sentinel duty, guard muni- 
tions and prisoners, and convey small vehicles. 

143 



The first lesson a Red Cross dog learns is to distin- 
guish between the uniform of his own country and that 
of the enemy. Then he learns that a wounded man is 
his business in life, and that when he finds one he must 
tell his master. 

He must not bark, because the enemy always shoots. 
There are different ways in which he may tell his master. 
This is a simple way. If he finds a wounded man on the 
battlefield, he returns and urges his master to follow him. 
If he has not found a wounded man he trots back and 
lies down. 

United States Consul Talbot J. Albert of Brunswick 
tells of the method used in the German army in which 
dogs have a short strap buckled to their collars, and they 
are trained when they find a wounded man in hunting 
over the battlefield at night to grasp the strap in their 
mouths and so return, thus signifying that there is a 
wounded man alive out there. 

It was necessary to devise a means of reporting 
wounded to overcome an evil that became evident among 
dogs to retrieve; that is to bring back some piece of 
clothing belonging to the wounded man — his cap, his 
glove, or something from the neighborhood, such as a 
piece of cord, a stone or a bunch of grass. The trouble 
with this method was that the dogs in their abundant 
zeal never returned without something from the injured 
man, and usually they took the first thing that struck 
their eyes. This was often a bandage, which the dog 
.could tear off. If taught to bring back a cap and the 

144 



soldier had none, the dog would very likely seize him 
by the hair. 

Dogs are never trained to scent out the dead. Their 
business is to assist the wounded. Each one carries a 
first aid package strapped about its back or neck and 
knows that when a wounded man is found the man may 
take the package. 

In the Belgian Army, dogs have largely displaced 
horses for rushing machine guns from one location to 
another. Officers claim that under fire they may be more 
depended upon than horses, and may be relied upon to 
keep the guns out of the hands of the enemy even though 
the entire escort may be killed. And they can be kept 
in the trenches safe from hostile bullets, which is im- 
possible with the larger animals. 




© Committee on Public Information 

Alaska huskies on service in France 
145 



In Russia dogs have been used to carry ammunition ^ 
to the firing lines, and by the quickness of their work 
have kept the soldiers well supplied from the ammuni- 
tion wagons always in the rear of advancing files. 

Their instincts, too, are relied upon. A French officer 
tells of one night while on watch as a private in one of 
the front trenches, every dog became suddenly uneasy, 
continually growling and becoming very excited. This 
was enough for the soldiers. They knew their army dogs 
and believed in them. So they telephoned to the main 
entrenchments for support. Fully twenty minutes after 
the reinforcements arrived, a German attack was made 
from the trenches opposite, which was turned back be- 
cause of the superior numbers that answered the tele- 
phone call. The distance of the German trenches oppo- 
site those of the French is not given. How did the dogs 
know of the approaching attack? 

Dogs and horses are cared for when wounded or 
maimed. They too have their sympathetic and tender 
nurses. In America the Eed Star stands for the same 
thing to animals that the Red Cross stands for to men. 

In France and Great Britain friends of the suffering 
animals are designated by the Blue Cross. 

In the Blue Cross hospitals at the front there are 
dogs suffering from broken legs, effects of gas, liquid 
fire burns and shell shock. The sufferers receive every 
possible kindness and attention from capable specialists. 

The war dog is no slacker. He knows when he is 
slightly hurt or mortally hurt, and if he is only slightly 

146 



hurt will not leave the field, but continues his work until 
a Blue Cross officer insists that he go to the hospital. 

So we find the war dog's devotion to his duty equal 
to that of the bravest warrior in the trenches. 

Adapted from Boston Post, London Dispatch, Red Cross Magazine, 
and New York Times 



Ballyshannon, War-Dog, a Hero of the Trenches 

Bally is a war dog in the true sense of the word, a 
wolfhound of famous but uncommon breed. He was in 
training for the police force in Dublin when his master 
took him to France. 

Bally took to the life like a true Irishman — the harder 
the knocks, the more desperate the fighting, the better 
he liked it. What he didn't care for was the enforced 
marches in retreat. 

For six months or so Bally served his master and the 
French troops, a faithful messenger. He weighs about 
170 pounds, but for a big fellow he is splendidly lithe 
and sinuous and able to get very easily where a man dare 
not follow. 

They say that when the regiment to which he justifi- 
ably belonged was ordered to Ypres (Eepr), Bally was 
the happiest and lightest-hearted member of it. This 
proves that even a dog does not always know what is 
coming to him. For Ypres was destined to be a dan- 
gerous if not fatal field to Bally. In the first action in 
which he was employed a heavy cannon thrown off its 
carriage rolled over on Bally and crushed him to the 

147 



earth. There the Huns found the dog, and seeing that 
it was still alive they carried him into their lines. 

For the first time in his military career Bally was a 
prisoner, helpless and apparently near death. At least 
the Germans so considered him, and the next day they 
thrust the crippled animal back into the French lines. 
There at least he might die among friendly faces. 

But Bally wasn't to be so quickly killed. A surgeon 
examined him and a nun took an x-raj of his bent and 
contused ribs. They were not broken, and as his master 
was returning to Ireland to nurse a shattered arm he 
took the dog along to get well in his native air. 

Bally' s worst adventure was to come, and shortly. 
Off the coast of Ireland the ship was torpedoed by a 
submarine, and but three of those on board escaped with 
their lives, a sailor, a New York man named Maloney, 
and Bally. The three supported themselves in the water 
by clinging to a plank, and when they were finally picked 
up and put ashore in Ireland, Mr. Maloney was so pene- 
trated with admiration of the superb courage displayed 
by the dog that, there being nobody else to claim him, 
he adopted the animal as his own and brought him to 
New York. 

That was last May. Bally, still almost unable to walk, 
was taken by his new master up to Central Park, and put 
in charge of Tom Hoey, who has been shepherd there for 
a score of years. For seventeen of these Lady Dale, an 
Airedale, has assisted Tom. It is a question which was 
the more pleased by Bally's advent, Tom Hoey or Lady 

148 



Dale. Both welcomed the Irish wolfhound heartily, but 
with Lady Dale it was a case of love at first sight. 

Since then Bally has lived in what ought to seem like 
a canine paradise. The shepherd, acting for Mr. Ma- 
loney, doctored and fed him medicine and food most cah 
culated to restore his strength, while Lady Dale saw to 
it that in his exercise he should see all her favorite 
haunts in the park. > 

A safe and pleasant life, Bally ought to be content to 
lead it, but he isn't. 

"The dog's that restless at times," said Tom Hoey, 
"that I fair believe he wants to be going back to the wars. 
It will be a sorry day for Lady Dale if he does, for that 
Airedale is in love with him if ever one dog was with 

anOtner. From New York Sun 




© British Official Photograph 

Ready to carry a message through enemy shell fire 

149 



Ways of Honoring Heroes 

When Admiral Sims, in command (of our navy in 
European waters, declined a title from the King of 
England, our secretary of the navy telegraphed his 
approval of the refusal. 

Our national constitution forbids any "person holding 
any office of profit or trust" from accepting "any present, 
endowment, office, or title of any kind whatever from any 
province, prince, king or foreign state" without the 
consent of Congress. 

Because our Allies wish to express their appreciation 
of valorous deeds by our soldiers and commanders, Con- 
gress has passed an act which permits any member of 
our military force to accept any but hereditary honors 
at the hands of foreign governments. Thus Sergeant 
Chamberlain received the Victoria Cross of which sol- 




Photo by Moser © Underwood & Underwood 

The flagship of our Atlantic fleet 
150 



diers are fond of saying, "You have to be a dead hero to 
get it." 

Our own government has four ways of publicly honor- 
ing exceptionally valorous or valuable service: 



1. Medal of Honor 




2. Distinguished Service Cross 



3. Distinguished Service Medal 





:-: [f mM,MS^ 



Is awarded for civilian as well as mili- 
tary service. 



4. Honorable mention or "citation" to officers, governments 
and publics 



151 



Semper Fidelis — Always Faithful 

Our flag's unfurled to every breeze 

From dawn to setting sun, 
We have fought in every clime or place 

Where we could take a gun — 
In the snow of far-off northern lands 

And in sunny tropic scenes, 
You will find us always on the job — 

The United States Marines. 

Here's health to you and to our corps, 

Which we are proud to serve, 
In many a strife we have fought for life 

And never lost our nerve; 
If the Army and the Navy 

Ever look on Heaven's scenes, 
They will find the streets are guarded by 

The United States Marines. 



The marines fight on land, at sea and in the air. 
"Semper Fidelis" (always faithful) is their motto, and 
"first to fight" their slogan. 

They do guard duty on board battleships and first class 
armored cruisers. They form the backbone of any land- 
ing party sent ashore from these ships. They man the 
secondary or torpedo defense batteries. At the aero- 
nautic stations they learn to fly. They ride horses, too, 
and have troops and squadrons of mounted infantry. 
In fact as Kipling says, "There isn't a job on the top 
of the earth that the beggar don't know or do." 

The stories which follow about their heroic deeds in 
this war show that the last two stanzas of their hymn 
are appropriate. 

152 



"Second .Lieutenant Carl C. Rice, 

machine gun battalion, in command of 
a machine gun section : On June 6, 
1918, near Chateau Thierry, France, he 
was wounded soon after the advance 
began, but refused to have his wounds 
dressed for fear it would delay the 
movement. He bravely continued to 
lead the section until he fell from 
exhaustion." 

"Private Theodore Pisticoudis, ma- 
chine gun battalion : When three in- 
fantrymen were buried by a shell 
explosion near Chateau Thierry, June 
6, 1918, he fearlessly left shelter in 
the face of a heavy shelling and res- 
cued them." 

"Corporal Eugene W. Wear, marines : 
On June 6, 1918, in the vicinity of 
Chateau Thierry, he with a private, 
went out into an open field under heavy 
shell and machine gun fire and suc- 
ceeded in bandaging and carrying back 
to our lines a wounded comrade." 

"Private Louis H. Harkenrider, am- 
bulance company: On June 6, 1918, 
in the vicinity of Chateau Thierry, 
with a corporal he went out into an 
open field under heavy shell and ma- 
chine gun fire and succeeded in ban- 
daging and carrying back to our lines 
a wounded comrade." 

"Lieutenant Lemuel C. Sheppard, M. 

C: On June 3, 1918, near the Lucy- 
Torcy road he declined medical treat- 
ment after being wounded and con- 
tinued courageously to lead his men." 

"Second Lieutenant James H. Legen- 
dre, M. C. R.: He displayed exceptional 
bravery in organizing and leading a 
party of volunteers through heavy ma- 
chine gun fire for the purpose of se- 
curing two wounded men on the Lucy- 
Torcy road, June 6, 1918." 



"First Sergeant Daniel Daly, M. O. 
C, marines : Sergeant Daly repeatedly 
performed deeds of heroism and great 
service. On June 5, 1918, at the risk 
of his life he extinguished a fire in 
an ammunition dump at Lucy-le-Bo- 
cage. On June 7, 1918, while his 
position was under violent bombard- 
ment he visited all the gun crews of 
his company, then posted over a wide 
portion of the front, to cheer his men. 
On June 10, 1918, he attacked an enemy 
machine gun emplacement, unassisted 
and captured it by use of hand gre- 
nades and his automatic pistol. On 
the same day, during the German at- 
tack on Bouresches, he brought in 
wounded under fire." 

"Private James J. Pretty, machine 
gun battalion : In the Bois de Belleau, 
France, on June 17, 1918, he and a 
comrade left shelter and went two 
hundred yards in the open under fire 
of the enemy and carried a wounded 
infantry soldier back to his lines, 
thereby demonstrating heroic and vol-» 
untary disregard of self to save one 
who could not help himself." 

"Private Bertram L. Ream, machine 
gun battalion : In the Bois de Bel- 
leau, France, on June 17, 1918, he and 
a comrade left shelter and went two 
hundred yards in the open under fire 
of the enemy and carried a wounded 
infantry soldier back to his lines, 
thereby demonstrating heroic and vol- 
untary disregard of self to save one 
who could not help himself." 

"Sergeant Robert II. Donaghue, 
marines : Northwest of Chateau 

Thierry, France, in the Bois de Bel- 
leau, June 8, 1918, he led his platoon 
against violent fire to destroy a ma- 
chine gun position, killed or wounded 
eight Germans himself, and did not 
cease firing until overcome from loss 
of blood from his own injuries." 



From official "citation" by General Pershing. These heroes were recom- 
mended for the D. S. C, Distinguished Service Cross. 



153 



"Over the Top" Six Times 

Lieut. Leland E. Douthit is a member of the 55th 
Company, Fifth Regiment, United States Marine Corps. 
He is not yet twenty years of age, hut he has been "over 
the top" six times. In the last engagement he was 
wounded and promoted to the rank of sergeant. In a 
letter, which is printed in the Dallas Journal, he writes 
to his mother: 



I want you to be brave, little mother, 
like you have been all through the long 
days that have passed since I saw your 
sweet face last. You must be proud of 
me and forget the ugly side of this war, 
since God has been very good to me, 
and I am proud to say that I have bled 
for my country. 

You saw in the papers of a certain 
date how the marines distinguished 
themselves against the enemy, yet in 
our recklessness we paid the price that 
both sides must pay. Though outnum- 
bered, we made the boche retreat with 
great losses. 

I am now in an American hospital, 



surrounded by American doctors and 
nurses, and receiving the very best at- 
tention. 

My wound is not dangerous, so I 
hope to be back with my company be- 
fore many weeks. I am happy. 

I hear that all the marines are to 
be decorated for valor. If we did any- 
thing more than any other red-blooded 
American would have done under the 
circumstances, I don't know what it 
was ; yet, in the many hard-fought 
battles to come between American and 
Hun, they, the Americans, can all use 
the marines' battle-cry, "We shall 
never retreat." 




©Committee on Public Information 

An American hut, camouflaged, in France 
154 



Tanks or Caterpillar Forts 

The men in the first line German trenches were amazed 
one misty morning by the appearance of an immense box- 
like object, whose dirty gray sides were almost invisible 
a few feet away. 

The mysterious enemy crawled steadily forward. 
Facing a rain of bullets it moved without interruption 
at the rate of a slow walk. 

Through stout belts of barbed wire, over shell holes 
and trenches, its long prow dipped and swung from side 
to side, forcing the soldiers before it to run for shelter. 
Scores of similar monsters followed, spouting fire and 
bullets, and the enemy fled in consternation before them. 

This was the first appearance of the tanks, the manu- 
facture of which had been kept secret by the British gov- 
ernment. Strange and wonderful stories were told that 
night after the battle of the traveling fort. Wounded 
men forgot their pain in recounting them. 

At the little village of Courcelette (Koor-se-let) the 
Germans had established batteries in an old sugar fac- 
tory, and it seemed impossible to move them. A tank 
appeared upon the scene, and waddled towards the sugar 
factory. The Germans were silent for a few minutes, 
then their guns burst forth suddenly. But the tank 
did not mind. 

Bullets fell harmlessly from its sides. It advanced to 
a wall of the factory, leaned up against it heavily. The 
wall fell with a crash of brick. Then the tank rose on 

155 




156 



the bricks, passed over them, and walked straight into 
the ruins of the factory. 

From its sides came flashes of fire. It trampled 
around over machine gun emplacements, "having a grand 
time," as one of the men said. 

It crushed the machine guns under its heavy ribs, and 
killed the gunners with its deadly fire. The infantry 
followed and in short time the Germans were driven out. 

In another advance a British tank came along and 
ploughed about searching for machine guns ; rumbling 
over bits of wall, nosing here and there, sitting on heaps 
of ruins while it fired down the street of what had once 
been a peaceful village. 

Said a London boy, "It was like a fairy tale. I can't 
help laughing every time I think of it. The tanks went 
over the barricades like elephants, straight through 
barns and houses, straddling German dugouts and firing 
down German trenches." 

A German colonel came out of one of the dugouts. He 
held his hands high in front of the tank, calling "Kam- 
erad, Kamerad." 

"Come inside," said a voice, and human hands pulled 
him inside the strange monster. 

And for the rest of the day the German colonel rode 
round in the tank with the British boys. It was the 
strangest ride he ever had. He will probably never for- 
get it. 

Once the men in a tank found themselves cut off from 
the artillery and their machine disabled. Something was 

157 



wrong with the engine. The men stuck to their guns, 
while the engineers repaired the engine. The fight lasted 
several hours. Finally the Germans broke in confusion 
and took to flight. Fifty of them, however, were cap- 
tured. The crew, hot, tired and exhausted, rounded up 
their prisoners ahead of the tank, and proceeded to the 
rear, the tank behaving more or less like a lame duck, 
but clattering triumphantly. 

But the German prisoners taken during the day's battle 
all testified to the terror inspired in the enemy by the 
unknown monster. 

It was not, however, until after General Byng's sur- 
prise attack at Cambrai in 1917 that the reputation of 
the tanks became firmly established. Previous to this 
attack tanks had been employed to accompany infantry 
during an assault, helping them to get across bad 
ground and to attack machine gun posts and centres of 
resistance. The usual artillery bombardment of several 
days or even weeks had always been employed on the 
Western front since the advent of trench warfare. 

But General Byng dispensed with artillery prepa- 
ration. His preparations and concentrations were car- 
ried out with the greatest secrecy. On a front of over 
twenty-five miles he sent his fleets of tanks into battle, 
followed by dashing British infantry. The tanks went 
through the stout German belts of barbed wire and the 
infantry followed. 

Caught completely by surprise, the German troops 
were simply rushed off their feet before they could get 

158 



their anti-tanks guns into action, and call for the support 
of their artillery in the rear. 

Since this battle every dispatch brings in new words 
of the tanks' victories. A while ago it was airplanes 
that were going to win the war. Now it is tanks. 

In spite of their strength and clumsiness, the tanks in 
the hands of skilled drivers are docile and as easily 
guided as trained elephants. Grotesque and ungainly in 
appearance they appeal to the humor in an infantry man, 
and he follows his lumbering guide with laugh at its 
effect on the enemy. 





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© Underwood and Underwood 

The tank's cousin in our home harvest fields 

The crew look from their fort through narrow slits in 

the walls, or through periscopes. If the tank is attacked 

by gas it may be sealed up, so that the crew may travel 

on until they reach fresh air before opening up. The 

159 



cabin is lighted with electricity, but is not a comfortable 
place in which to ride. The machinery produces a heat 
like a boiler room and in an attack when the rapid fire 
guns start the noise is so great that orders cannot be 
spoken, but must be conveyed from one man to another 
through a carefully worked out system of signs. 

The new tank tactics are very interesting. Before 
tanks were used no attack was ever made on an en- 
trenched enemy without first destroying the barbed wire 
and accounting for his machine guns. The result was 
that the enemy always had ample warning that an attack 
was pending, and he brought up his reserves and stopped 
the offensive in short order. 

Now the tanks destroy the barbed wire and account 
for machine guns. The infantry follow immediately and 
surprise attacks are possible. 

Tanks serve as moving artillery for the infantry, who 
advance under their protection. 




© Committee on Public Information 

The way our infantry fight after tanks pave the way 

160 



The small tanks can be used as special cavalry. Re- 
treating enemy can be chased, machine gunned and 
thrown into complete confusion. The "whippets" and 
the "mosquitoes" can worm their way far into the 
enemy's territory, and interfere with transports and 
retreating troops. They can accompany cavalry just as 
they do infantry, taking care of troublesome machine 
guns whenever the regular cavalry is held up. 

The tanks also conserve life. Knights of old were 
protected from swords and arrows by their armor. The 
modern infantryman trusts for life to trenches and 
earthworks. The tank men know that in their steel fort 
they are safe, except for the chance of a heavy projectile. 
Official reports show that 'in eight tanks which were 
stopped by German field guns in an attack on Le Quesne 
(Cain) only one man was wounded. 

There are many divisions to the tank service, some 
more dangerous than others. The salvage corps has 
perhaps the most dangerous job of all. These men must 
creep out under cover of night, and crawling over the 
embattled fields strewn with the ruins of the day's fight, 
recover from broken-down tanks whatever parts are fit 
for further use. 

If some tank abandoned by its crew because of heavy 
shelling, has by chance escaped enemy capture, these men 
must worm their way to it, make necessary repairs and 
return with it, often under heavy fire. 

The motorcycle corps, an important part of the tank 
service, rushes about during battle carrying dispatches 
from one point to another. 

161 



The men in the tank service have chosen "Treat 'Em 
Rough" as their slogan, and a hnge black cat as their 
emblem and mascot. Any cat that looks black enough 
and fierce enough is apt to be kidnapped and adopted by 
some tank battalion. 

So exciting and interesting are the stories of the vic- 
tories of the tanks that many men have become eager to 
enlist in the corps. 

A well known business man about forty years of age 
gave up a salary of $100,000 a year to enlist as a private, 
with the hope of being an officer of the iron cavalry that 
is to charge on to Berlin. A film service manager on the 
Pacific coast gave up $25,000 to do likewise. Hundreds 
of prosperous and successful leaders in civil life are 
swarming to the fighting colors of the tanks. 

Only the men especially fitted for the service are se- 
lected. Every officer is promoted from the ranks. No 
man can secure a commission without first becoming a 
private. 

Just what the United States is going to do in regard 
to this new idea in modern warfare is a mystery. No 
other arm of our service is so secretive as that of the 
tanks. The tank is to be a weapon of surprise. The 
less the enemy hears about our plans the sooner our 
"Treat 'Em Rough" crews can pilot their landships into 
Berlin. 

Adapted from Associated Press, New York Tribune, and Boy Scout 

Magazine 



162 



Insisting Upon the Pass Word 

The "Old Man," as the boys affectionately called the 
colonel, had given orders that no soldier should allow 
an officer to pass up the front lines unless he knew his 
identity. 

Private Bates was on sentry duty at the entrance to the 
trenches. He had not been on guard long when he saw 
a middle-aged soldier coming towards him. 

"Advance and give the password," commanded Bates. 

"That's all right," said the soldier, "I'm the colonel." 

"Now, what in the world would the 'old man' be doing 
round here," said Bates. "You make a move and I'll 
stick this bayonet in you." 

Just then the captain came along on his tour of inspec- 
tion. 

What was his horror and amazement to find the colonel 
of the regiment, backed up against the wall of the trench, 
with Private Bates' bayonet pressing rather dangerously 
against his stomach. 

Bates, it appears, had never seen the colonel, except 
at a distance as he went by in his car or trotted past on 
his horse. He had no idea that he was so tall. 

The colonel was delighted. He had gone out on pur- 
pose to test the sentries to see if he could bluff his way 
through the line. He commended Bates highly, and said 
he hoped all sentries would be as careful. 

Adapted from The Stars and Stripes 

This is a people's war, not a statesmen's war. 
— Our President 

163 



Americans in Joan of Arc's Home 

Les Americains! Les Americains! The Americans are 
coming to Domremy (Dom-ray-me)! 

Yes, Domremy is rejoicing much in the same manner 
that she rejoiced that day five hundred years ago when 
a courier came to tell that their child, their little Joan, 

had with her own hands 
crowned the King of France 
in the great Cathedral at 
Kheims. 

Today another courier has 
arrived, asking the town's 
hospitality for these new 
Allies from America, a land 
which seems very young to 
old world villages like Dom- 
remy. Five hundred years 
isn't such a long time to the 
people of a town that has 
hardly changed its appearance in all those years. 

It meant lots of work and many sacrifices to prepare 
the village for these thrice welcome guests. 

It took lots of time, too, to answer questions and tell 
over and over again to each new group of soldiers the 
story of Joan of Arc, and to personally conduct each 
group to the house where Jeanne d'Arc was born. 

"There it is still, the very same house," has to be 
repeated many times. The same house after five hundred 
years ! This is hard for young Americans to appreciate, 




© N. Y. Times Magazine 

Joan of Arc's home 



164 



who, in their own short lifetimes, have seen good-sized 
cities built up, and torn down to be rebuilt to suit other 
purposes and tastes. 

"There is the very tree under which Jeanne used to sit 
and spin while her sheep grazed about her. It was there 
the Voices most often spoke to her. They still speak 
to those who know how to listen. 

"Come and talk with Mother Larose. She has been 
hearing the Voices since she was a little girl, and now 
she's eighty-five. Then there's Marie of the notion shop. 
The Voices have spoken to her about the war — and to 
Joseph, the tailor! Oh, there are many people in our 
village who've heard the Voices, and why not? They 
came here once and inspired a glorious page in the 
history of France. Why shouldn't they come again, 
especially now when the Americans have come?" 

"And why not?" said the Americans to the distin- 
guished French general who came the next day to visit 
them, and stopped to talk with privates and cooks and 
other non-commissioned heroes in this new army of 
Allies. 

"Of course we understand why the people of Domremy 
should believe that the Voices may still be heard, but 
what we'd like to know, General, is, are they heard?" 

They were standing on the top of a hill which looked 
over valleys toward the spot whence later the First 
American Field Army was to start its victorious attack 
upon the German frontier south of Verdun. The general 
looked first at the church which France had erected on 

165 



this hilltop in memory of Joan of Arc. Then he looked 
long and earnestly into the faces of these young Ameri- 
cans, came to precise military attention, and said: 
"Listen!" They listened, and heard — a distinct, clear 
American bngle call to advance! They knew what the 
general meant when he asked, "Do yon hear the Voices V 9 

Rewritten from an incident related to American audiences by Capt. 

Perigord, a many-times wounded French officer, teacher 

and priest, who was sent to America by France 

to help us understand the war 



Pershing Before the War 

Major- General John J. Pershing, commander of 
America's first field army in France, or, as he is known 
among the rank and file of his men, "Black Jack" Per- 
shing, is the yonngest of his rank in the United States 
Army. He is fifty-eight years old and was graduated 
from West Point in 1886 as senior cadet-captain, the 
highest honor any undergraduate can achieve. He hegan 
active service at once as second lieutenant of the Sixth 
United States Cavalry. 

For seven years Lieutenant Pershing did not know 
a promotion, hut in 1893 he was raised to the rank of 
first lieutenant. He was assigned to the Tenth Cavalry, 
the crack negro command that afterward won fame at 
the San Juan blockhouse. Because of the fact that he 
was appointed to the colored troop he earned the sobri- 
quet of "Black Jack," which has stuck to him since. 

Pershing, as a young officer, applied himself strictly 
to the business of fighting. He made a thorough study 

166 




General Pershing in Paris 



© Paul Thompson 



of tactics, and is now generally known as the best strate- 
gist in the army. He was an instructor at West Point 
when the war with Spain was declared. He at once 
applied for the command of the old "Tenth," and his 
regiment was among the first to be shipped to Cuba, where 
he distinguished himself in the field, winning the applause 
of his colonel. At the battle of El Caney, he was pro- 
moted to the rank of captain for gallantry in action. 

When the American flag was thrown to the breeze over 
the Philippines, Captain Pershing was ordered to duty 
in our new possessions. There he earned the name of 
the "great pacifier." By the exercise of tact, persuasion 
and unlimited patience he established friendly and even 
cordial relations with most of the natives. Only as a 

167 



last resort did he use force, but then he dealt smashing 
blows. 

The Moros were his first great military problem. 
They were fiercely antagonistic to the United States. 
They refused to accept the assurances of the good inten- 
tions of this Government, and fought the advance of the 
Americans step by step. To subdue them was a difficult 
task. But Pershing gritted his teeth and undertook 
the work with his famous smile. He had a picked lot 
of regulars under him, every man of whom he knew and 
trusted, and every one of whom loved "Black Jack." 

The Moros that Pershing was called upon to bring to 
terms had mobilized in the crater of an extinct volcano 
called Bud Dajo, on the island of Jolo. To drive them 
out had been a task with which the army had contended 
since 1906. Pershing announced to his men that the 
Moros were coming out of the crater if it took him ten 
years to accomplish the job. And they did! 

In January, 1916, General Pershing was assigned to 
the command of the Eighth Brigade of the regular army, 
with headquarters at El Paso, Texas. After the Villa 
raid General Pershing commanded the punitive expe- 
dition into Mexico and handled the problem in a manner 
entirely satisfactory to the Administration. 

On the death of Major-General Funs ton, General 
Pershing succeeded him in rank and command. He re- 
mained on the border until he was summoned to Wash- 
ington to take command of the first American troops ever 
ordered across the ocean to battle in Europe. 

168 



Two years ago tragedy entered into the life of Gen- 
eral Pershing. His wife and three of his children were 
burned to death in his home. Warren, his five-year-old 
son, was rescued by the servants. The blow was a hard 
one, but the General met it like a soldier. 

Adapted from The Literary Digest 

Pershing in France 

Among General Pershing's first acts in France was to 
send word to the mothers of American soldiers that no 
stone would be left unturned to give our soldiers health- 
ful living and working conditions and wholesome recrea- 
tion. 

After the American Field Army started the drive into 
Lorraine, in September, 1918, the newspapers of all 
nations commended America for the courage of her 
soldiers and the skill of her commanders. Marshal Foch, 
head of all the Allied Armies, complimented General 
Pershing and his officers and troops upon winning "a 
magnificent victory by a manoeuvre as skillfully prepared 
as it was gallantly executed." 

Eegarding this attack and the general who planned it, 
two newspapers commented as follows: 

"It was a thoroughly workmanlike performance, not a 
mere successful dash of gallant men. Pershing, with all 
the careful scientific preparation and resource of con- 
temporary war, hit one of the toughest, most strongly 
fortified, most 'impregnable' parts of the German line. 
In those skedaddling Germans, in those great masses of 

169 




© Paul Thompson 

Marshal Foch, generalissimo, directs all Allied armies 

captured men and materials, we are to see only a part 
of a noble bit of military science. They are among the 
details. The blow itself, powerful and effective as it was, 
is but a preparation for greater things. 

"General Pershing has shown that he knows the game. 
It would be a waste of time to praise a man who has 
given such proofs of his trained military capacity. He 
would deprecate praise for himself, but it cannot hurt 
him to feel that the United States is proud of him and 
his men." — The New York Times. 

"Every one has known, even Berlin, what American 
troops could do. Until St. Mihiel no one could be quite 
sure what the American command could do. No Ameri- 

170 



can general or staff officer had had experience in handling 
such vast bodies of men in actual combat. Modern war- 
fare demands a complexity and accuracy of staff prepa- 
ration to which Napoleon was a stranger. 

"There was the best of augury in General Pershing's 
modesty. His administrative work had been of the high- 
est quality. His loyal seconding of Allied leadership 
when American troops were brigaded with the French on 
victorious fields was a bright record of the war. 

"When his time came to command, there was no lack 
of mastery. No action of the entire war has been fought 
with greater skill, dash and precision. 

"In military history the pinching out of the St. Mihiel 
salient will be a 0138810." — The World. 




Here, on the soil of Lorraine, 
rest the first three American sol- 
diers killed by the enemy, Novem- 
ber 3, 1917, Corporal James B. 
GWe&ham (of Mvansville) , Pri 
vate Thomas F. Enright (of 
Pittsburgh), Private Merle D. 
Hay (of Glidden), Company F, 
16th Regiment, 1st Division. 

As worthy sons of their great 
and noble nation, then fought for 
Right, for Liberty, for Civiliza- 
tion, against German Imperialism, 
curse of the human race. 

They died on the Field of Honor. 



171 



Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight 

It is portentious, and a thing of state 
That here at midnight, in our little town, 
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest, 
Near the old court-house pacing up and down. 

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards 

He lingers where his children used to play ; 

Or through the market, on the well-worn stones 

He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away. 

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black, 
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl 
Make him the quaint great figure that men love, 
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all. 

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now. 

He is among us : — as in times before ! 

And we who toss and lie awake for long 

Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door. 



The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart. 
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main. 
He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now 
The bitterness, the folly, and the pain. 



It breaks his heart that kings must murder still. 
That all his hours of travail here for men 
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace 
That he may sleep upon his hill again? 

— Vachel Lindsay 
From The Congo and Other Poems, The MacMillan Company 

172 



Lincoln and Kaiser to Two Mothers 

The contrast between Democracy and Autocracy shows 
in many ways. The difference between the two following 
letters is not due to some accident. The difference is due 
to deep-seated differences between the autocratic Prus- 
sianized Germany of 1918 and the America of 1776, 1861 
and 1918. 



The Kaiser's Letter 

"His Majesty the Kaiser hears that 
you have sacrificed nine sons in de- 
fense of the Fatherland in the present 
war. His Majesty is immensely grat- 
ified at the fact, and in recognition is 
pleased to send you his photograph, 
with frame and autograph signature." 



Frau Meyer, who received the let- 
ter, has now joined the street beggars 
in Delmenhors-Oldenburg, to get a 
living. 



Lincoln's Letter 

Dear Madam- — I have been shown in 
the files of the War Department a 
statement of the Adjutant General of 
Massachusetts that you are the mother 
of five sons who have died gloriously 
on the field of battle. I feel how weak 
and fruitless must be any words of 
mine which should attempt to beguile 
you from the grief of a loss so over- 
whelming. But I cannot refrain from 
tendering to you the consolation that 
may be found in the thanks of the Re- 
public they died to save. I pray that 
our Heavenly Father may assuage the 
anguish of your bereavement and leave 
you only the cherished memory of the 
loved and lost, and the solemn pride 
that must be yours to have laid so 
costly a sacrifice upon the altar of free- 
dom. 

From New York Times 



Germany is constantly intimating the 
"terms" she will accept, and always finds 
that the world does not want terms. It 
wishes the final triumph of justice and fair 
dealing. — President Woodrow Wilson 



173 



Our Flag Forever 

She's up there — Old Glory — where lightnings are sped; 
She dazzles the nations with ripples of red; 
And she'll wave for us living, or droop o'er us dead — 
The flag of our country forever! 

She's up there — Old Glory — how bright the stars stream! 
And the stripes like red signals of liberty gleam 
And we dare for her, living, or dream the last dream 
'Neath the flag of our country forever! 

She's up there — Old Glory — no tyrant-dealt scars, 
No blur on her brightness, no stain on her stars 
The brave blood of heroes hath crimsoned her bars, 
She's the flag of our country forever. 

— Frank L. Stanton 




N. Y. C. High School of Commerce 



174 



Military Terms 



Ace — an aviator who brings down five enemy planes. 

Airdrome — aviation field with platform for machines to land and sheds 

in which they are housed. 
Arditi — (ar-dee-tee), one branch of Italian soldiers. 
Barrage — (bar-rahge), when an army wants to advance and to pre- 
vent the enemy from coming to meet them hundreds of 
cannon shoot shells so aimed that the shells will fall like 
a curtain of deadly hot steel. The enemy will be killed if 
he tries to rush through this barrage. Those who shoot 
it are safe in moving forward, if they do not move faster 
than orders. Then a new barrage farther on is shot which 
forces the enemy back, and permits the advancing army to 
make another gain. 
Bersaglieri — (behr-sahl-ee-ehr-ee), division of Italian soldiers. 
Breechbolt — small and large guns have breeches, i. e., place where 
they open. The breechbolt helps lock the gun when it 
shoots. 
Camion — (cam-e-on), ammunition chest or wagon. 
Carobineri — division of Italian soldiers. 

Caterpillar wheels — see photograph of tanks which look like cater- 
pillars when moving. 
Commandeer — to require property or personal service for immediate 
government or army use, leaving compensation to be 
settled later. 
Cordon — an extended line as of men or ships. 
Counter-attack — when an attacked army attacks back. 
Crimes against humanity — crimes like sinking neutral ships, bombard- 
ing unfortified cities, making slaves of free peo- 
ple, starving; prisoners of war. 
Croix-de-guerre— (craw-deh-gair), French cross of war. 
Detrain — to leave a train 

Dog-tag — a fighting man's identification tag. 
Doughboy — any person connected with the American Army. 
D. S. O. — Distinguished Service Order. See photograph. 
Emplacement — position and foundation for large guns. 
Esquadrille (es-kah-dree), a flying corps. 
Grenade — a bomb hurled by a soldier. 
Mess — soldiers' meals. 
M. G. C. — machine gun company. 
M. C. — Marine Corps. 
M. C. R. — Marine Corps Regiment. 
Mosquitoes— r-small French tanks. 
Mufti — civilian clothes. 

175 



No Man's Land — land for which two enemies are contesting between 

their trenches. 
Ordnance — powder, shells, guns, military equipment, arsenals, armor- 
ies, munition factories. 
Poilu — French soldier. 

Parapet — a wall to strengthen a trench against an enemy attack. 
Platoon — half a company, commanded by a lieutenant. 
Released — a newspaper term meaning "offered for publication." 
Rue — French for street. 
Salient — that portion of a battle line which extends into enemy 

country. 
Sappers — men who dig tunnels under the enemy lines. 
Sector — a division of trenches. 

Shell-shock — upsetting of nerves, due to constant explosion of shells; 
a condition where nerves keep jumping and frightening 
the mind even after shells stop exploding. 
Shrapnel — bits of iron shot from cannon. 
Sick bay — hospital on board a ship. 
Spirals — long strips of cloth wound round and round the leg for 

leggings. 
Strafe — German for "let him punish," e. g., "Gott Strafe England." 

(May God punish England), a common greeting used 

during the war by Germans instead of "Good Morning" 

or "I hope you are well." 
Tractor — the "driving part of a tank, engine, drive wheels, etc. 
Trench mortar — gun used to send bombs into enemy trenches. 
Volplane — downward swoop of airplane. 




"Gee! I passed in French in College, too' 



Reprinted from Life. Copyright Life Publishing Company, from 
p. 90, War Facts for Every American 

176 




euc^n 



